[pokernicus]

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I'm always amazed how many people insist on slowplaying big hands and then end up winning a small pot.

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While I agree that you should normally play straightforward "fast playing" poker most of the time in small stakes games, I think there are times when it's still better to slow play.

For example, suppose you flop a monster hand (like quads). Because the board fits your hand so well, it's less likely to fit your opponents as well. Therefore, any reasonable 'fast' bet on the flop will likely result in everyone folding. In this case, checking might be preferable since a turn card might fit someone else's hand and you can get more action.

I actually had this happen to me once where I was holding pocket 4s and flopped quads. The flop was checked all the way around. The turn was a queen (and two of my opponents had AQ...) We wound up in a three-way all in where they were drawing dead. This might be the exception rather than the rule, but there is a chance they could have folded to any bet I on the flop.

Personally, if I check the flop on a slow play, I rarely check the turn as well. The standard caveats of slow playing apply; also, if your opponents are complete calling stations (which happens often at small stakes), you might as well keep betting to build the pot. But, I would hesitate to say that slowplaying should be dismissed -- instead, it might be better to say that it can be applied, but perhaps much more selectively than you would apply it in a more sophisticated game. .