Is this a slowroll?

I was playing with a kid this weekend and two situations came up. In number 1 i'm in the cuttoff with AJh and open for a raise. He calls from the BB.


flop: Kh Kc 9h

he checks, i bet, he calls.


turn: 3c

he checks, i bet he calls.


river: 6 clubs

he checks, I bet he calls.


I say "ace high", he just holds onto his hand looking at me and not turning it over, I turn over my AJh and then he turns over 76h for a pair on the river.


maybe he was trying to see what hands I make a move at the blinds with on the button, but it was such a loose game a situation like that was rare.


I don't remember the second hand but it started with few more players. Anyway, i bet a busted draw on the river and he calls. I say "i missed", he waits again, and then turns over 2 pair when i turn my hand over.


is this a slow roll? should I just forget about saying these things and turn my hand over right away. Usually if i am beat my opponent will turn over his hand if i'm beat so that i can muck.


rob

no, it's not a slowroll. u were the bettor and he was the caller. the better has to show his cards first. he's correct in waiting for you to turn over your hand because some people will lie about their hand, etc...; in addition, he has the right to see your hand before turning his over b/c of the previous reason stated [u bet, he called]


When i'm the bettor, or it's checked around and i'm first to act, i quickly turn my hand over..this helps the game go by more quickly and smoothly.


-jon

Not a slow roll at all. You are wrong in this spot. You options are turn your hand over or muck. The talk is not necessary. Alot of players say what they have or say they missed so they don't have to show there cards and how they are playing. Your opponent was smart enough not to get taken advantage of.

So in these situations, when your opponent declares his hand, do you wait to turn your over when you have him beat?

I define a slowroll as, "Allowing the opponent to think that he might have the best hand when I know for certain that he doesn't."


Yes, he slowrolled you on both hands. In both cases I would have turned my hand over immediately after you verbally declared your hand. And so would EVERYONE I play with, and I mean everyone, and we're talking about a player pool of 1000+.


Tommy

Rob,


When I bet the river and am called, I turn my cards over immediately no matter what. I never announce my hand in any verbal fashion whether I have a good hand or not. If I call the river, and the other player declares his hand and I know I have won, then I never turn my hand over or say anything until he either turns his hand over or mucks it. Those are the rules, and that's how I play. I never turn my cards over slowly or do anything to ever rub anything in; but I also never turn my cards over when it is not my turn to do so. People can say whatever they want, but that is how the game is played. I do not in any way feel badly about that, and I do not in any way feel that it is slowrolling. Similarly, when it I am last to check on the river, I never turn my cards over instead of saying or indicating "check." I always have people turn their cards over in the order that the rules indicate.


-Dan

Interesting. Your player pool is so much nicer than most are here in L.A. I always turn over my cards right away when someone calls out a hand I can beat. The only time I won't do it is when they say "one pair," which could mean aces or deuces.


Having said that, it's not turning over one's cards when called that invites this kind of slow roll (and I'm not convinced it is a slow roll). Most people will say "no pair" or "Ace high." But again, no pair could be 3-2 and it could be A-K. I've also seen guys say no pair, have their opponent turn over, and then slowroll a straight or a flush.


Best policy? Don't call out your hand, just turn it over right away when it's your turn to do so.

Sometimes. If I think the person is doing it for the reasons that I mentioned before I will wait. If I think the person doesn't know better and he or she is nice I will just show my hand and take the pot. Especially if its the fish in the game. You don't want to embarass or upset him in any way. You want him in the game so you make exceptions.

Absolutely Dan. Those are the rules. Why don't poeple just follow them instead of doing something else. Then getting upset because they think they were slowrolled. By the better not showing his hand, whether intentional or not, has an advantage. An adavntage that is supposed to be the callers because he paid to see it.

"Your player pool is so much nicer than most are here in L.A."


I gotta jump back in here to say that I do not think there is anything wrong with doing it by the book the way Daniel does. That's exactly how I do it, for the most part, if I'm playing out of town. My lax ways in this area are a direct result of local custom, not a statement about how things could or should be.


Tommy

"So in these situations, when your opponent declares his hand, do you wait to turn your over when you have him beat?"


Maybe. Not waiting to turn your hand over (i.e. turning it over as soon as your opponent says "I missed" or "ace high" or whatever) is a courtesy. While it is a "nice" thing to do, it is not something that you have any right to begrudge other players not doing.

I disagree with you on this one. Actually i agree that your definition is good, but a secondary definition should be "one who takes extra time to show his/her hand when it is currently their turn to do so". When you are first to show- you should show. So the Ace high is actually slowrolling by stalling and not turning his cards up. In general slowrolling is a malicious practice that I actually got into a near fight over once (not physical, I just basically told the guy to go f-ck himself and then words just flew back and fourth), but people announcing their hand then not turning it up is still rather annoying. If people just played ethically and by the rules we would never have these problems. The one pair guy had the right to see the player open his cards first, so he simply waited and didn't do anything unethical.

I think there's two types of slowrolls. The bad-etiquette kind, the kind that I presume we all dislike, is when a player goes out of his way to willfully torture his opponent by making his opponent think he has a winner. For example, if a player has top-two pair and a flush draw on the turn, and on the river, regardless of who bet or called or whatever, he says, "I missed" with malicious intent, that's a bonafide bogus slowroll.


The lesser kind of slowroll, the one in this thread, is never absolutely "wrong," because, as we all apparently agree, the player who is obligated to show his cards did not do so, so whatever pain he suffers stems from his own inaction.


Yeah, it'd be nice if everyone simply turned over their cards according to the rules. But the simple fact is that we do not live in that world. People DO say, "I missed" and mean it. People DO say "ace high" and mean it. I don't see this as a devious ploy to avoid revealing information. The information is there. A miss is a miss. An ace-high is an ace high.


Even though this verbal-rather-then-visual showdown method is technically unpure, it does exist, and it is common, so common that concepts like "culture" and "custom" come in to play.


An example from golf: If my opponent and I have not been making the other putt out all day on one-foot putts or less, and I have a two-inch putt, and I pick my ball up without getting a clear indication from my opponent that this putt is a gimme, and then he were to suddenly say, "Hey, I didn't give you that putt," that would be bogus, even though I was not officially granted a gimme, because a custom had been established.


In the same way, if the local custom is to not make an opponent show his hand after he verbally declares his hand and I have that declared hand beat, then it would be a slowroll by me to make him show, especially if he routinely grants me the same courtesy when the situation is reversed.


Tommy

I do THIS, maybe more often than anybody I know, and that is, if a player shows-down what he thinks might be a winning hand whether in or out of turn, but other players between him and I still haven't mucked or shown-down and I have that shown hand beaten I will say so, this usually speeds things up, but I will not show the hand until it's my turn. Head-up in the situation described above, it depends if I want to be "friendly" for purely selfish reasons,of course. Players with whom I'm more genuinely friendly don't do this stuff anyway.


Mike

Yeah this is true but one thing also comes up that clouds the situation, and it is this: I have had real assholes announce a hand, then I turn over my hand and then they turn over something totally different (one time a guy says "I got tens" then he turns over 2 pair)- they just want to try and force you to expose your hand first even when they may be expecting to win the pot- granted this is rare but still it opens you up to some unscrupulous player trying to take advantage of you. Anyway this is totally f-cked up and I hate seeing things like this happen at the poker table. Therefore I think the best policy is to open your hand and shut your mouth (or announce your hand after its open- this is actually probably the best way to do things, but once again somebody may announce differently trying to get the other guy to fold).

I've had many a player whom I called down at the river announce something like "I missed", and when I turn over my top pair they show me a missed flushed draw that turned into two pair or a straight on the river.


If I am the caller at the river, I will very rarely show my hand until I am SURE it is the winner. Since rules are very clear on this protocol, I am giving away free information every time I fall for this angle. Excercising this right is IMHO no way shape or form a type of Slow Rolling.

Though the guy who waited was within his rights, I think it should be discouraged. If you are a skilled player, a part of your edge comes from reading hands better than your opponents do. When showing hands is minimized, you force your opponents to guess about your hands, while you guess about theirs. You are pitting your reading skills against theirs. As a good reader, you thereby pick up another small edge, increasing your overall win rate just that much. Do you want to pit your reading skills against theirs, or just trade prefect information by showing your hand when it's not really necessary. The latter just takes that edge away.


In my experience, not showing, and instead "negotiating" for a couple of seconds after a hand, becomes more common as you move up the limits. Perhaps this is because the players are increasingly aware of its advantages. I would encourage players to engage in the bit of negotiation some have mentioned: "Ace-high... small pair... I missed, etc." Your opponent may sometimes have to request clarification: You say "ace-high," and he asks, "How big?" because he has ace high too. So you answer and if yours beats his he nods or says, "That's good," and you show and take the pot. Otherwise he shows. This almost never takes more than about four seconds.


An angle shooter misrepresenting his hand is another story altogether. If you don't think you can trust the player to call the nature of his hand honestly, then of course you wait till he shows. If you don't know the player and want to play it safe you might politely ask to see the first time, just to make sure he's being straight with you. Otherwise, I virtually never force anyone to show, and hope others will afford me the same courtesy. Note that if you force others to show, they will sometimes respond in kind.

If I understand correctly, you are saying that reducing how often hands are shown is beneficial to the skilled player since he is a better handreader. I completed disagree. I think that since the skilled player is a better hand reader than his opponent, having more information benefits him since he is able to use it well, while his opponent is not. The skilled handreader wants hands to be shown as often as possible because he is able to use this infromation to construct a perfect model of exactly how his opponents play, and knows that his opponents lack the ability to do the same.


In a shorter way: more information being exchanged (through hands being shown) benefits the handreader because he is able to gain more benefit from the information his opponents give him than his opponents are able to gain from the information he gives them.

The skilled handreader wants hands to be shown as often as possible because he is able to use this infromation to construct a perfect model of exactly how his opponents play, and knows that his opponents lack the ability to do the same.


If you are a very good reader, you don't *need* to see a lot of your opponent's hands to figure him out. But what about your average reader opponent?

so what if people slow roll? let them. if they get that little kick out of it, then that's fine, be patient, and make them show it every time. you can ask them politely not to slowroll because it slows down the game, but who gives 2 sh!ts if you are uncertain whether you won or not because that kicker just hasn't turned over yet? the ultimate in courtesy and etiquette is to absorb all things and not let them get to you. show your hand when its your turn. show your hand when you know you have the best hand. don't wait. show your hand whenever you intend to do so eventually and forget about letting other people see what you played. switch gears enough so that people can't put you on a hand just because you played the pocket 33 to defend your blind to a raise and now you smooth limp with AA so that you can reraise, and then make some monster pot. by setting the example of showing your hand promptly, your opponents will respect you enough to do the same for you, and any jerk who still slowrolls you will get his due rewards in time.