Slow Playing
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Slow playing in online poker is one of the skills linked to the art of deception, one of the core poker strategy skills. By slow playing a Texas Holdem hand, you're trying to mislead your opponents and deceive them into believing you have a worse hand. Clearly slow playing works best when there looks to be no chance of forming a good hand with the cards already showing, and you do actually have a strong hand to start with.
The aim of slow playing is to make a low enough bet to encourage your opponent to play further into the hand in a situation where if you bet heavily you might force them to fold. You can see from this that it's actually the opposite of bluffing and is a good way of increasing the pot size by giving your opponents the reason to either underestimate you hand, or giving them the reason to attempt a bluff themselves. If it works, then either way the potential rewards are good for you. The risk of course is that by allowing them to stay in the hand, they get an extra chance to improve.
There's a whole range of poker videos on slow playing, which cover the skill from from a 'how to' and 'when to' perpective. Alternatively you can read more at Learn-Texas-Holdem.com, which covers the skill with some good example hands, or TopPoker.com where there are examples of slow playing with
high pocket pairs or the nuts.
The aim of slow playing is to make a low enough bet to encourage your opponent to play further into the hand in a situation where if you bet heavily you might force them to fold. You can see from this that it's actually the opposite of bluffing and is a good way of increasing the pot size by giving your opponents the reason to either underestimate you hand, or giving them the reason to attempt a bluff themselves. If it works, then either way the potential rewards are good for you. The risk of course is that by allowing them to stay in the hand, they get an extra chance to improve.
There's a whole range of poker videos on slow playing, which cover the skill from from a 'how to' and 'when to' perpective. Alternatively you can read more at Learn-Texas-Holdem.com, which covers the skill with some good example hands, or TopPoker.com where there are examples of slow playing with
high pocket pairs or the nuts.