What do you think of slow playing (asking for time)?

[psyduck]

One thing I've noticed a lot: if there's an all-in and a person behind the all-in takes a while to call, and then eventually makes the call, it usually means KK/AA. The person is trying to make it look like it's a hard decision, and he wants other people to come in after him so as to extract max value. I've seen this done a lot.

edit: obviously, this doesn't mean you should auto-fold QQ, but I do put a note on that person. will this note ever help me? I doubt it very much.

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Zabt, you really can't rely on time to act as a tell. If you folded every time I pushed just because I happened to take a while before doing it you would be making a major error. If you called every time I pushed after taking some time, you would also be making a major error.
Don't let this be a determining factor in your play unless you have a specific read on an oppenent.

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The timing of the actions of your opponents can be tells. Of course, good players won't give anything away by their timing, but bad players sometimes do. For example, a very quick check on the flop means a check/raise quite often. A quick call on the flop often means a draw, etc.

Also, if I have a good hand, I might wait a while and make a weak-looking bet on the flop, so I appear weak. It definately works against some players.

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I knew there were some poeple out there playing this way. As gisborne has suggested, he was the player who asked for time with the QQ. I knew he was likely 8-tabling and was probably just under multi-table time pressure. I took no read from the delay and in no way meant to criticize him. But, I wondered if someone who did not know gisborne might have been misled.

Every-so-often we see in this forum a read based upon the tempo of another player's action. My thinking is always that we can't really get a read from tempo. Too often it is someone who is distracted or otherwise delayed by a non-poker matter. Or, maybe the action appeared quick because of the quirks of the internet. And, sometimes the delay is an attempt to deceive (so we should read the opposite of what it might be telling us if we were to make a read). All in all, tempo reads strike me as very unreliable. That was the point of the post.

I do find the attempts to deceive through hesitations offensive in one regard: the player who does this is wasting everyone else's time.