Slowplaying

For the longest time there have been ppl for and against slowplaying and this has been debated on a number of occasions and I have come to the conclusion that both sides of the argument are right.
I look at it this way, if you are an aggressive player, then a slowplay won't work too well for you because any check raise will set off the red light for anymore action, so a c-bet will be in order when you are in a position to slowplay and will likely be called on a non-threatening board when you flop a set or better.
On the other hand, if you are the passive type who just calls alot and doesn't raise or c-bet, then a slowplayed set or better is advantageous to the passive type.

Slowplaying is very important in building stacks. Unfortunately, I am more of an aggressive player. Therefore, I get called all the time. The slow play seems to work well for me when I am playing with players that aren't familiar with me. However, when playing with players that know my game. It's harder for me to get involved in a hand that I am ahead.

Lefty

slow playing can have its bonus`s as you can see the flop with out commiting much and bale out if u know ur beat. and if u do hit can make ur opponent play a bad hand wrong with good profit for the slow play! but can all back fire when they limp with nothing and hit 2 pair of flop!

If you got the absolute nuts after the flop, you have to slow play here. Let others lead out a bet to you, hoperfullly a card has helped them. Slowplaying pocket pairs can be dangerous when they turn to trips on the flop, as it can lead them to drawing out on you.

Here is a post I did: Slowplaying: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-hand-analysis-51/slow-play-good-bad-ugly-129025/
This is how slowplaying affected me in 3 different ways

One comment I have is that I don't like people who slow play and then complain when the "sucker" hits his draw and beats them for a big pot. I will slowplay my big hands about 3 out of 4 times, but I always take into account the risk that my opponent may improve enough to beat me. Yesterday, I had to memorable hands that I slow played. The one I won was where I had pocket jacks and hit quads on the flop and had to people push all in on the turn for a nice nearly triple up. The other I had pocket sevens and hit a set on the flop and lost when my opponent caught his third King on the river. I don't favor c-betting my sets or bigger hands on the flop because at the stakes I play at I get very few callers so I feel I lose too much value by c-betting.

Every situation in poker has multiple 'correct' answers, and the 'correct' answer can easily change with every 6/9/10 different players, seated in 6/9/10 different positions, relative to YOUR position and just as many stack sizes.

Adjusting your play to the table will often determine what your 'correct' decision should be, influenced by all actions before you, and all actions yet to follow.

Can't say I've ever seen any 'one way to play it' work in every hand.

I believe that slowplaying makes you lose too much. You should never let them catch up. I would never slowplay unless i was heads up with a super agressive player and knew he would double or triple barrel bluff into me.

The biggest mistake is slowplaying against bad players, i got burned from this. But i like to mixed it a bit and strangely i keep getting those drawing dead calls .
P.S. Or those 2 outer calls

All the above points to the fact that situation is the key. Position, the type of game, the stack sizes, the type of players at the table. But we all know that this is true for most things in poker, as the previoius poster pointed out. It's just not possible to make a single hard-and-fast rule that covers all situations.

slowplay is relative. U have to look what kind of player are @ your table. It's most effective against super aggresive players. But if the table sees you as tight you might not get raised after u call a big bet (your table image is important too)

I would think if you can't slow play a hand every now and then, then hitting the larger than normal pay off would not be possible. The end result would be tooling along with no real possibilty of advancing your BR.

I think table image has a lot to do with the effectiveness of slowplaying. In my regular home game, I'm viewed as a tight-agressive player but I'll vary it up by playing loose-agressive. I've found slow plays work best when i'm transitioning from loose- to tight- agressive modes of playing.

That being said; if i'm in the casino's in Atlantic City; most of the people don't know me from adam and I'm not sure they would know a slow play if it bit them on the tuckas. From my experience the majority of people in casinos are just there to have a good time and blow some cash. Not to play "real" Poker.

Cheers,
M

See here:

aliengenius said:

Anyway, here are Skansky's criteria of slowplaying (from Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players):
1. our hand is very strong
2. you will probably chase everyone out by betting
3. the free card has good possibility to help make a second best hand
4. free card has little chance of outdrawing you
5. the pot is not that large

You need to have ALL of the above (not just one/a few) for the situation to dictate a slowplay.

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josh_dei8 said:

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-hand-analysis-51/slow-play-good-bad-ugly-129025/

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In the second posted hand , I don't think the flush draw would of folded to any thing but a huge over bet ... and that may have been met by a all in re raise.

aliengenius said:

See here:

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TY made my post

I just recently realized I was slow playing almost all my big hands in ring games. Since I stopped I am seeing much better sessions . I still feel out the table , and will bet when they are all loose .. but if you catch the nutz on a TAG following with second best ... slow play will get you paid !

in my opinion there is no right and wrong for slow playing. You can only hope that the decision you make was made intelligently and slow playing pre-flop is probably in my opinion the worst idea you can do. Other than preflop, slow-playing is a situational tool that you have to use your reading abilities and gut instinct to decide weather it is right or wrong for that situation

I'm not a pro by no means, but I was sitting at a table the other day that had two players that were very loose. One of them loved to reraise almost all turn card raises by at least double. He had a VPIP of over 80% and a PFR of over 20%. I had a fairly tight image of ~20/10.

I was dealt AA in the Big Blind and both of these players called. The button was a 'steal master" and raised it to pot. All of us had been at the table for more than 40 hands so I had pretty good reads on the other three in the pot.

"Steal Master" folded to a 3-bet around 60% of the time and the other two were calling stations. I reraised pot-size and, sure enough the first two called and the "SM" folded.

The flop came out xAx rainbow with no str8 potential. I'm first to act post flop and I decided agaist fast playing my set of aces here. I checked and it was checked around. The turn came out a K.

With the ace on the board and the K falling on the turn, I was now in a beautiful position to 1/2 pot the K hoping for a reraise bluff on the ace for the one acting after me. I bet out 1/2 pot, next player doubled (as planned) and then the last player doubled again!

Of course now it's time to break the bad news! I go all in, both call and they both turn up K7o!!!! Wow!

I can't think of any better situation to slow play (even though my preflop can't really be considered such)!

this one is tricky u have to be holding the absolute nuts in order to feel comfortable pulling this off-god forbid u flop the nut flush only to have youre opponent hit runner runner and bust you with a boat-i say just pick your spots and be careful as you can be well rewarded for your play as well as lose all your chips-the_urge27

I think slow playing is great, and i also think that slow playing a set a better and then smooth calling is even because then ur oppenent would really put u on nothing and u could check the turn again and he is most likely gonna fire anoter bullet and thats where you pop it....

You just have to do it wisely based on the board and the type of players at your table...I love trapping and slow playing, anyone I regularly play with is more afraid of me when I'm checking and calling then when I'm betting and re-raising. For example, if you flop a set of 9s on a board 7-9-10 with 5 players in the hand, do NOT slow play it....this may sound obvious but believe me I have seen people do it and then an 8 comes off on the turn. The table image as many have already said is big too...after someone has played with a chronic slow player or trapper for awhile and they check a flop of A-A-Q after they raised pre-flop, just about everyone at the table is going to know what is going on. Therefore, you will sometimes need to play hands faster if you want to get payed off and people dont recognize a pattern.

If you catch what you know *probably* is the best hand you should slow play.

Because

1. Gives them a chance to catch a card that might be able to let you get some chips from them

2. Gives them a chance to bluff it and once they do *maby they'll let themselves feel pot commited and continue the bluff on the turn/river*


The main thing *in my opinion* is to look at the player himself.

Loose aggresive *trap him*
Loose passive *go fishing*
tight *value bet*
tight aggressive *give them the chance to bluff*


As far as trapping i generally wait to re-raise on the turn... cus *in there head* they think they got 1 more card that cud give em a top hand.

In online poker I believe and worship in slowplayng. Usually people online willl make stupid big bets. I say keep on callng them, and then raise them and kill them on the river!

I agree. Slow play if for those who choose it, and quick play is for others. . .if you are at a table which is moving slower or faster than you would like, get up and go to another. If you are in a tournament and you are faced a style of play not conducive to your own. . .tough, that's tournament play. I think that we have to work with what we are best at, and then practice with what we are not good at. Playing against a player the opposite style of you will help prepare you for your tournament play.

shinedown.45 said:

For the longest time there have been ppl for and against slowplaying and this has been debated on a number of occasions and I have come to the conclusion that both sides of the argument are right.
I look at it this way, if you are an aggressive player, then a slowplay won't work too well for you because any check raise will set off the red light for anymore action, so a c-bet will be in order when you are in a position to slowplay and will likely be called on a non-threatening board when you flop a set or better.
On the other hand, if you are the passive type who just calls alot and doesn't raise or c-bet, then a slowplayed set or better is advantageous to the passive type.

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Well it worked this time and my AA did not get cracked, all-in = bad and not having chips tho it is easy to tell what someone has in a bet, slow playing will work if your short stacked with a pusher at the table

This is a good question. This depends LARGELY on your Table-Image. As you said if you develop an aggressive image , it wont work out for you. IF you develop a passive image , then slowplaying ought to work out for you. So , stick to 1 style , preferably the tight-aggressive one. If you do not know what it is, look it up. Adopt it and GL