I used to get bothered by slow rolls. Mostly it was from losing the hand. But some it was about thinking I had won, stacking the chips in my head, and feeling burned. Like salt was rubbed in the wound.

Since the only thing I can control is my attitude and my behavior I have since done a 180.

I no longer stack chips in my head before I know I have won.

I take into account that most players lose money and for them the victory celebration is where they get their pleasure. It isn't personal. So I have started evaluating slow rolls. Like I am a judge at the Olympics. This not only takes my mind off of losing the hand but there are some pretty amazing slow rolls out there.

Also, I no longer tilt. It isn't personal. I don't have to go after the guy at the table. But sometimes they might think I am tilted. Advantage to me.

If its a reg I play with a lot and it happens more than once I'll ask them point blank why they are slow rolling me. In front of the rest of the table. That makes them look weak and pathetic. And they know it. The slow rolling stops. I think thats a good thing actually because in the end its bad for the game. People may stop playing because of it and/or violence can happen.

Anyway, since I have adopted this attitude I have stopped getting angry at drivers that cut me off. Or who respond with Road Rage at me. I remind myself its not personal (how could it be?) and let it go.

Live long and prosper.

I disagree with a lot of people who think the slowroll was done to tilt the OP. I think he did it in retaliation for something he may have done to him in previous hands or sessions.

Did you suck out on him on the river or beat him out of a big pot? Did you possibly not notice you had a straight and took a little longer to table your hand when he was in a pot with you in a prior hand?

OP this is usually done to get back at you for something that happened in the past. I don't think it was just a random slow roll, unless he really didn't know he won the pot until just before he rolled over his hand.

But either way, don't let these things get to you.

I might 'semi' slow roll a chop once in awhile with a reg. I've been accused of a couple minor slow rolls when I was so focused on my draw that I didn't see that something else much simpler came through for a win but I don't think I've ever purposefully slow rolled anyone .... I do have 2 guys on my list to do it against if the time is right, but I don't really focus on that stuff too much.

Can we stretch this thread into players who roll their hand and then move their cards up close to the Board, thus matching the hole cards with the Board cards in use? I do this on occasion almost without thought when I hit an abstract draw or funky 2 pair. I'm sure it can be seen as rubbing it in, but I'm doing it just to move things along and avoid the "What's he got" neck cranking that goes on when my opponent is on the opposite side of the table. GL

That's not even close to a player tapping his finger on the card that either makes a straight or a pair showing everyone, in case they don't know how to read hands, that his hand is better.

Is that considered bad etiquette? I do that quite often if I rivered an unlikely hand like an inside straight.

I don't consider it bad etiquette. Personally I would prefer people just table their hand an announce straight. It's just a pet peeve I guess, and it doesn't rub it in as much.

Some people, and I'm not taking a shot at you madlex, consider it a badge of honour to treat words like spending gold coins during a poker hand. Hence never verbalising actions, tapping cards and often these same people practice a slow silent menacing stare for river play.

Then between hands they miraculously regain the power of speech so you can hear all about the terribly unfair beats they have suffered.

Possible, your response makes the most sense to be honest. I am a reg and he is as well....

I'm over it, it didn't tilt me as much as shock me because it a little disrespectful. I don't gun for people I just stick to myself.

Emotionally, I've placed slow-rolls in the same category as bad beats. So I react the same to them, which is no reaction. I put them down to bad luck and move on the next hand. If an opponent is being vocal about it, I laughingly tell him, That was bad acting, I knew you had it. To possibly make him feel like he sucks at slow rolls. The game allows slow rolls, and I decide to continue playing it, so no point in getting mad about it.

If you hang on to this incident until the next time you play with him, do yourself a favor and stop lying to yourself about not letting it affect you.

Damn, brotha. You can't let little **** like this bother you like that.

I totally get wanting to get revenge on them, but don't "stew" over it. :O

You CAN help it, and the first step to recovery is admitting you have a tilt problem (rather than trying to justify it as "life EV" or whatever).

Damn, if I thought that I could get ppl to play bad just to try and get revenge (it wouldn't be for a slow roll, I don't do that) I just might have to go to the local Ethics Emporium for Poker Players, and buy a new attitude.

The guys you play with will likely not be happy if you change your attitude

Slow rolling is the benign and unimportant aspect to poker etiquette... it has no bearing on the outcome of a hand and if it affects you one iota, you need help.

If you had the worst hand, you lost... get over it and move on.

There's a third category, people who claim it doesn't bother them but it totally does. And the problematic part is not that it bothers you but that by denying it does you don't adjust.

As someone pointed out, sometimes they slowroll to get back at you for a slight - real or perceived. Did you invoke IWTSTH earlier? Consider not doing that. Did you make a racist joke and not realize his wife is the race you made fun of? Consider learning new jokes. Did you make a bad call and suck out on them? Consider playing better. Of course sometimes their anger is just irrational, like you made a good call and sucked out on them but they're still mad. Or maybe they're mad at you because you've raised their big blind 7 times in a row and you haven't noticed but they did. And for those inevitable times where there's nothing you should have done differently, you need to convince yourself that you're right and be polite but firm. But for the times you should or could have done thinga differently, you can make them a lot less mad by changing your behavior or at least being extra courteous.

Sometimes people slowroll because they're bad at poker and they're not sure whether their kicker plays. You don't want them to get better at poker, so just convince yourself that the guy who calls down not knowing if his kicker plays is someone whose positive traits outweigh his negative.

And of course sometimes people are just dicks and everyone on the planet needs to learn how to deal with annoying people. Things within your control are table changing or changing your whole poker schedule to avoid people you don't like. Consider learning meditation or mediation or some kind of anger management training, there are plenty of books about those sorts of things.

And finally, instead of lying and saying, "It doesn't bother me," say something which is true but optimistic, like, "It's annoying, but I try not to let it bother me."

I read a book a while back, I believe it was "Emotional Intelligence", that basically argued that your emotional triggers, the things that are going to set you off, are fairly rigid and set either very young or by very stressful events. Once these triggers are set, it is very difficult to change them. You can, however, change how you react to these triggers. The intensity and duration of your emotional response can be tempered. How you act can also be modified.

This is why some people go into autopilot after a bad beat-they have disengaged portions of the mind while the calm down (this is similar to why soldiers train so hard to do things the exact same way-when they are emotionally triggered and terrified, they still have the ability to react through rote muscle memory).

A skill I am still working on is the ability to process my frustration at being bad beat, slow rolled, or even nit rolled. Some of the best players I know can get extremely angry, but then take a breath, tap the table, say 'Nice hand', and then be past it.

Trying as hard as I can I can't remember ever seeing a decent player slow-roll someone purposefully. There have been occasions when a player has been just about to muck, or has said 'nice hand' or 'you win' and then realized that a draw had been overlooked and they have the best hand. Almost always that player launches into a rapid and sincere apology. That leaves the bad players doing the slow-roll and, although it may sting a bit, it's worth it to have them in the game. There are many other annoying behaviors but as long as these players show up for reasons other than playing good that's fine by me.

This is how I frame it in my mind: I'm not going to let someone else's actions ruin my night.

But that's just the point I'm trying to make: YOU play to have fun. Other players go out to ***** and moan, throw cards, slow-roll, berate other players, insult the dealer and the list goes on. They do it bec they're thinking 'I can do this bec it's poker, it's allowed.' That group includes people from advanced stations in life who absolutely can not do it in their normal human interactions. The pros know this and they put up w/ it bec that player has shown up for reasons other than to play well and it's great for the game/their bottom line. Try an attitude adjustment and be happy that player keeps showing up.

If you can't stop being aggravated just try to not let it tilt you and find your happiness on the way home w/ your winnings in your pocket.

Seems like you're telling the guy he should play poker for the money instead of for the fun.

It's been my experience that winning increases the fun by orders of magnitude.

It helps, but there are plenty of games that would be profitable but not fun for me (including any NL holdem games that I can beat). Slow rolling is designed to increase one's fun at the expense of others, and it has the desired effect on many recipients. I think anyone who does it should be actively shamed by the table, and there actually should be a rule against it, enforced if the behavior continues.

A slow-roll is tough to define and easy to defend.

It's like pornography: tough to define, but I know it when I see it.