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Unlike ‘slow playing’, which is a deceptive, but perfectly acceptable, tactic in poker, ‘slow rolling’ violates the principles of poker etiquette and is universally despised by players. The slow roll comes at the end of a hand, a.k.a. the ‘showdown’, when it is customary for the player who believes he has won to reveal his hole cards immediately. However, a player who believes he has won – indeed, he may hold the best possible hand, a.k.a. ‘the nuts’ – may make a song and dance about calling the final large, or all-in, bet of the hand and, to make matters worse, subsequently delay the process of revealing his hole cards. This unsportsmanlike behaviour may be intended to showboat winning the hand, or to chastise or taunt an opponent, for whatever reason, but serves only to make the player who does the slow rolling hugely unpopular with everyone else at the table.

Of course, situations occur where players, even professional players, ‘accidentally’ slow roll, having failed to realise that they have actually won the hand. Apart from these few, isolated incidents, though, slow rolling is usually done with malice aforethought and should be treated as an insidious tactic that is, above anything else, just plain bad manners. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the rules of poker than explicitly forbids slow rolling but, if you want to maintain the respect of your opponents and avoid negative emotions around the table, just avoid it.

In blackjack, tens are obviously valued at 10 points, but so are court cards or, in other words, kings, queen and jacks. Depending on the rules of the game in question, a pair of ‘tens’ could mean, literally, a pair of tens, a pair of kings, queen or jacks or, in some cases, a ten and a court card or two dissimilar court cards.

In any event, where splitting is allowed, the player can stand, with a hand valued at 20 points, or split his cards into two hands, each with a starting value of 10 points. Some players split a pair of ‘tens’ regardless of the upcard the dealer shows, while others so only if the upcard is one of the weakest possible, such as a five or a six.

However, splitting not only not only doubles your outlay, but also significantly reduces your chances of winning. In a standard game of blackjack, in which cards are dealt from a six-deck shoe and the dealer stands on ‘soft’ 17, the probability of winning if you stand on 20 is 83%. By contrast, in the same game, if you split a pair of ‘tens’ – and thereby run the risk of winding up with two hands both worth less than 20 – the probability of winning each split had us just 63%. In simple terms, unless you are an accomplished card counter and the ‘true’ count is at least +4, the mathematically correct decision is always to stand on a pair of ‘tens’.

In flop-style poker, such as Texas hold’em, blinds are compulsory bets placed by the two players to the left of the dealer or, in ‘button’ games, to the left of the button, or disk, which indicates the dealer position. Blinds are so-called because they are placed before players have seen their cards. Typically, there are two blinds, known as the ‘small blind’ and the ‘big blind’. The player in the small blind position, immediately to the left of the dealer button, places a bet equal to half, or approximately half, of the minimum bet. The player in the big blind position, immediately to his or her left, places a bet equal to the minimum bet. These bets, posted before the cards are dealt, seed the pot and trigger the action in a hand. Online casinos to play with no deposit bonuses can be found on this site http://www.casino-on-line.com/category/bonus-casino/ .

The betting action begins with the player immediately to the left of the big blind position, a.k.a. ‘under the gun’, who may call, fold or raise, and so on around the table as far as the big blind, who is the last player to act pre-flop. If the pot is unraised, the big blind may check, in which case pre-flop betting comes to an end, or raise; obviously, folding the big blind in an unraised pot is a silly thing to do, as you effectively get to see a free flop. However, if a player has already raised, the big blind must call the raise, re-raise or fold. Casino options aplenty can be found on sites like https://www.onlinecasinosnoop.com/usa-online-casinos . Note that in two-player, or ‘heads-up’, poker, the player on the button is the small blind and the other player is the big blind.