Slow player in CG

If it is less that 30 seconds, there isn't going to be much you can do. It can feel like forever waiting. Only thing I can think of is to have your phone stop watch running and see how long it takes.

It’s unnecessary BS, that’s what makes it so annoying.
First to act, and it takes him like 20-30 seconds to fold, like, looking at his cards, then going into „thinking mode“, then looking again, then, really slowly (even the physical motion), fold.
Just theatrics, BS.
Or, when he looses a pot, he doesn’t fold the hand, he says for example „you are good“, but then keeps his hand, showing it left and right, complaining how he couldn’t win etc … and dealer can’t push the pot or finish the hand till he finally folds.

As I said before, I’m sure it’s 90% for him bc of the attention he gets for it … and I have a hard time dealing with it.

Cost of having a bad player in the game, I know, but with him the cost is huge …

Everyone understands what you're saying.

Only 4 options:

* Talk to the floor about it, see if they can observe for an orbit or two. Maybe they will have a talk with him.
* Talk to him directly, try to be polite and friendly, make it seem like it's in his best interest to speed it up a bit too somehow
* Talk to the other players, try to get the group to apply some pressure to him
* Table change or game change to get away from him

None are guaranteed to work at all, or work in your favor.

ya just know the guy will also slow roll without meaning to as well.

I'm bringing up the Jeopardy theme on my phone and calling clock every single time the action is on him. Dont even wait one second.

You can do that but about the third time you do it you will be warned. If you continue you will be asked to leave.

Every player must be allowed a reasonable amount of time to act BEFORE the clock can be called. This should be the first question the floor asks when dealer calls him over…’has player had adequate time to act’.

Only the floor can put a player on an automatic clock and even then he gets reasonable time to decide.

Thx for all the input guys.
Tried a lot of it already, unfortunately nothing really worked/helped.

1. talked to the floor, but since every single one of his actions is not excessive, they watched a while and got bored really quick.
Problem is as i mentioned the multitude

2. no table change possible, there’s only one plo game going in that place

3. calling clock on him always actually makes me look ridiculous (and would be also not ok all the time).

Tricky situation… was hoping to get some new input/perspective, but I guess I have to live with it (or leave).

Just sucks, bc the game is really good, and having this guy in slows it down approximately 30% I guess.
Serious -EV trap

This is an age old variation of the same old question. So some of the most juiciest players to play against are also some of the slowest players. A professional player can calculate his win rate as his average advantage per hand times the number of hands per hour. An opposing player who increases your winrate per hand is great, but if they decrease your number of hands per hour it becomes an exercise in weighing competing factors.

Now if you are not a professional and winrate doesn't matter (or better said, isn't the highest factor) then there are ither choices. If you are playing to be entertained, then a slow game can be excruciating. I have been there.

Then your only options are to either switch tables (which it sounds like isn't an option) or somehow encourage him to play faster. This can be done through the carrot or the stick.

Initially I would try the carrot. Between hands I would try and be friendly and create a connection with him and let him know his slow play is causing a problem. Maybe say other players have commented on it and you want to help him.

If that doesn't work, increase the peer pressure. Peer pressure can do amazing things. Maybe one time after he folds say "You know, you take a long time with every decision. They cannot be all that difficult." This helps make other players aware that they are taking a long time. Maybe someone else will help apply pressure.

Then after a while if similar such comments do not work I would increase my A-holeness. Start to blatantly call him out on his delay. The trick is to be aggressive, but to never cross the line into saying anything that will get you warned or kicked out.

Try and think of ways of making comments that highlight his slow play without breaking any rules.

If he is slowing the game that much then the rake is impacted. Someone from the casino cares. You just need to find that person and seek their help.

If you can't find that person, peers/other players can influence. You can try to be nice and encourage him (sounds like this may have been tried but I bet it takes more than once before it might work. Try again)

If the nice doesn't work and if "all" the other players agree with you, you can all work together. Multiple nice but becoming less nice nudges.

(Next one I don't like but can be effective, esp. if dealers on your side.) Can start (occassionally) fast folding/calling (or even betting) OOT behind him. If "enough" players do this (3 maybe) and dealer enforces it (also has to kinda allow it) this can lock him into call/fold only (IIRC). A few of those on the rare hand he wants to bet/raise, might break the habit.

The ultimate nuclear option (which will get the room's attention for sure) is just start breaking the game. Everyone (or enough) just get up and leave. Once house starts seeing game breaking and thus rake going *poof*, they will do something.

Obviously some of these can be painful. But even if he is "good for the game" because of how bad he is, he might not actually be good for your hourly. That is something you need to calculate or at least consider.

Maybe the best answer is leave it alone and enjoy the profit. Maybe the best answer is piss him off so he leaves. Or maybe you (with others) can find a way to "fix him" and make everyone happy. Certainly can suck you have to work this hard on something that isn't really 'your job'. But assuming you are a pro, it actually is part of your job. It is ultimately customer relations. And regardless of what you have heard, the customer is NOT always right.

i actually talked to the other players yesterday (he was not in the game), and they basically all agreed with me ("yeah, he is so slow, so annoying ... etc."), but at the same time nobody really thought it necessary or cared enough to do something about it. and thats probably bc most of them are also recs, they don't look at it in terms of -EV or anything like that.

Man, I totally get where you're coming from — I've been in a similar spot during my local PLO games. 😂 There was this guy who took forever on every single hand, like he was trying to crack the code of poker with sheer brainpower. Preflop, postflop, showdown — it didn’t matter. Every move felt like a deep meditation session.

At first, I tried to give him a little nudge, jokingly saying, “Hey man, you’re not in the Main Event,” but that just made things worse. He clearly thrived on the attention and leaned into it even more.

What actually worked was doing the complete opposite — I just stopped reacting. No sighs, no side-eyes, no comments, nothing. Once he figured out that no one was paying him any mind, he actually started to speed things up (probably because his little audience had vanished).

It’s frustrating though — slow players really throw off the flow, and you can’t just call the clock every hand without coming off as a jerk. The best strategy I found was to keep him content enough to stay in the game, but without giving him the satisfaction of attention. The guy’s like your personal ATM, just a bit slow on the withdrawals 😅

There is a player like this I play with sometimes. I haven't done it, but I have considered trying to get everyone at the table play just as slowly as him for awhile, until the dealer and his realize that it's costing them a lot of money and start enforcing faster play. Has anyone seen this tried?

As a dealer, thr biggest issue is that they are only there for 1/2 an hour so it is really hard to get a read on when to speak up and when to not.

I have dealt plenty of games where one particular player was slowing down the game. Ridiculously so. So I speak up and try and get him to play faster only to have another player at the table try and stop me from pissing him off.

The player is literally passing out money to everyone else at the table. He is just doing it slowly. Very slowly. No one else wants him to leave, so no one else wants him to be irritated by being asked to play faster, but it is directly affecting my bottom line.