What poker hands are strong enough to slow-play after the flop in Texas Holdem?

Full house or four of a kind. Not only are these obviously good enough to slow-play, you must slow-play them. When you flop a full house, for example, there are very few cards left in the deck that can fit with the board. If you hold

and the flop comes

there are only two aces and one queen remaining. You’ve gobbled up all the oxygen in the room, and now you have to wait and hope that someone bluffs or hits a card on the turn or the river and can play with you.

Flushes and straights. These are also strong slow-play Texas Holdem situations, although you have to be careful when you flop a flush which is not the nut flush. The danger here is that holdem player with a high card which matches the board will slick around and draw to a flush that beats you. Slow-playing a flush when the ace of the suit is on the board is the safest situation; good Texas Holdem players will often play ace-x suited but are much less likely to play two lower suited cards. If the ace is on the board, your chances of facing a draw to a better flush go down.

Straights are excellent slow-playing poker hands since the danger is not as obvious to your holdem opponents.

Trips. These are good slow-playing poker hands, and are much more common than the stronger poker hands. Some poker pros tell you to be careful when you flop middle or bottom trips, because you might lose to higher trips. That’s not true. If you get knocked out of poker tournament because you lost in a set-over-set confrontation, then it just wasn’t your poker tournament. When your set gets outflopped, you’re supposed to lose a lot of money. When we hear someone telling a story about how he shrewdly laid down middle set after some intricate chain of reasoning convinced him he was beaten, our quick (but silent) reaction is "Dumb."

Two pair. Top two pair are a candidate for slow-playing in Texas Holdem. The other two pair combinations are weak. The bottom pair, especially if it’s a very low pair, is too often counterfeited when high cards appear on the board. I prefer to just bet out for value and win the pot.

Top pair – Even a lowly top pair can be slow-played under certain very specific conditions.

Here’s what we like to see.
1. The best situation is to hold ace-king and flop king-x-x, with three different suits and no connecting straights. You’re not afraid of an ace flopping since you have one, and you’re not afraid of the pair being outdrawn since you have top pair. Your only fear is that one of the two low cards on the board has paired someone, and they might now hit trips or pair their other hole card. But those are small risks, worth taking to pick up an extra bet.
2. The second-best situation is to flop queen-x-x when you hold ace-queen or king-queen. Again you hold top pair and a higher kicker, but now there is one overcard that can appear and beat you.
3. The final situation is to flop jack-x-x when you hold a jack with an ace, king, or queen. This is a very marginal slow-playing situation at best, but against the right holdem opponent and under perfect circumstances I might try it.

For the top categories of poker hands, the straights, flushes, and full houses, a more interesting question is "When don’t you slow-play poker hand?" If you believe from his betting before the flop that your holdem opponent may have started with a high pair, or made one on the flop, then just bet. There’s a good chance you will be raised. Remember, your primary goal is not to trick him, but to get his money in the pot. Many poker players lose sight of that simple fact in the heat of battle.

A betting sequence we particularly like when we have a monster poker hand is one where we make our continuation-sized bet and get called. Then we check on the turn and he checks behind me. Now we’ve created the impression that we had nothing, we made my one stab at the pot, and gave up after we got called, but now just maybe we can steal the pot on the river. When we make one final good-sized bet, it’s almost impossible for our holdem opponent not to pay us off if he has anything at all!

Good luck.

Also recommended:

1. Slow-Playing Before the Flop in Texas Holdem
2. Slow playing After the Flop in Texas Holdem
3. Slow-Playing in Texas Holdem
4. Texas Holdem Practice Hands
5. Playing Hands from Middle Position in Holdem