Why it's time to stop slow playing big poker hands
The growing demographics of online poker mean you need to update your poker strategies
LEAVE THE SLOW LANE! With so many hundreds of thousands of new poker players beginning to play poker online every month some of the old strategies are wearing themselves out with over-use. The classic example would be the old mantra that “you should slow-play a monster hand!” This approach may not be sustainable anymore as increasingly opponents are wise to it. Add to this the fact that often you don’t extract as much value as the hand demands. So what is slow-play when you strip it right down? Let’s say you’ve landed pocket rockets as your hole cards and you simply call the big blind. That would be slow playing a premium pair. If you flop a flush and you just check, again you are slow-playing a monster hand. The reason behind these reactions is the hope that you won’t give away the power of the hand you are holding. The old standard tactic is to lure an opponent into a big bet and add value to your inevitable pot in that way. In the early days of poker, before the online cascade, there was more chance of players falling for the slow-play routine as outlined above. These days it is often seen through by a majority of players who simply fold on you when you are holding the goods you’ve been waiting all evening to land. You are better off to bet your strong hand and pump up the pot yourself.
GO FOR THE CON! Your strategy should be to con the opposition into thinking you are launching a big bluff, getting them to follow you all the way up to their eventual slaughter at the pot with your name on it. The mind-set for most poker virgins when they land a big hand is very much “how do I make sure everyone at the table doesn’t fold on me?” That mind-set automatically kicks in slow-play. The frame of mind these days needs to be, “How can I milk as much money as possible from the hand I’ve been fortunate enough to land?” The answer to that in 2006 is bet your hand from start to finish as though you are running a credible bluff or simply being aggressive. Aggression never really looks out of place at a table of ten players anyway so you’re not really magnifying the risk of making opponents fold anymore than usual.
BEST NICKNAMES All online players put a lot of thought into their chosen nicknames and rarely a day goes by without one of them catching my eye and making me smile. If you spot any particularly good ones please post them at dailystarpoker.com. My favourite this week was acehole! I’m sure the player concerned is a skilled cunning card player who just wants opponents to believe the bottom’s fallen out of his game. Of course, there’s always the happy chance he’s just crap!
