Slow playing a monster hand can be a hugely satisfying play. It can make you heaps of chips if done right and give you the satisfaction that you have managed to get one over one of your opponents. You’ll feel like a master bluffer and your opponent will feel like a plank. The bad news is that the slow playing of poker hands as a strategy is a losing one.

You will often see headlines and articles about how smart it is to slow play pocket aces. Don’t get me wrong, before the flop you will inevitably be favourite with pocket aces – the only time you won’t be an outright favourite is if someone else on the table also has pocket rockets. To slow play when you know you are a favourite before the flop is to almost take away your advantage. Yes, it may help to get the stragglers on the table to throw some chips in, but it is also giving them the opportunity to hit a hand on the flop. To check or call with AA pre-flop is a very weak play in my opinion as you are opening yourself up to straight draws, flush draws and trips on the flop. To intentionally slow play AA to only get hit with trip 5’s on the flop would be a crime.

My advice is if you have the temptation to slow play a hand, don’t do it. By definition if you are considering slow playing a hand it must mean that you have a pretty decent starting hand in the first place. If this is the case, get your chips into the pot with a raise. By doing so you will likely eliminate players with weak starting hands pre-flop (who won’t then have the chance to luckily make a hand post-flop) and the fewer players there are in the pot, the greater your chance of taking the hand. The only time when I would advocate slow playing a hand is if you are up against a single player who you believe you have strong information on. If you are confident that they have an obvious read, then slow playing against them might be an option. In all other circumstances, slow playing a hand might eke out a few more chips from loose players but in the long run it is highly likely that a slow play strategy will lose you more chips than you gain.