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Slow Playing: A Rounders Best and Worst Friend

You are in a intense game of no-limit Texas Holdem and you are unfortunately in the big blind. You are dealt you two cards in this five carded game and when you look at your cards you think its too good to be true. You realize that you have the best hand in poker, bullets, rockets, American airlines, pocket aces, or whatever else you want to call them. The first person to act bets, the next person folds, the next calls, the small blind folds, and it is now up to you. The question you must ask yourself at this point is if you want to reraise knowing you have the best hand or do you want to just check. These are two different possibilities and both have a potential negative and positive occurrence. In the sections you are about to read you will learn the pros and cons of slow playing and a situation where it could be applied. I will try to suggest the best possible ways to do it, but poker is all about mixing up your game and so even if I say you should do it in this article, it might not be the best play at that point in time.


Going back to the situation above we will analyze the many different choices of the different plays that you have and what the possible outcomes could be. Let's say that you decide to reraise a very large amount and the initial better calls but the other player folds. You know have increased your chances very much but you know your opponent also has a monster, (which you have beat) and your opponent knows that you have a good hand also. The flop comes 2h 3s 10d and again you have a couple of options. Since you are the first to act and you bet before the flop the right move to do is bet now. Since you put your opponent on a monster these cards most likely won't help him and you have the best hand. By now your opponent probably has already figured out that you have a pocket pair but he decides to call you and see 4th street. A Kh comes on Fourth Street and you bet again. Your opponent quickly folds and realizes that you have something and he is beat.


Now in this situation you ended up winning the pot and probably winning somewhat of a lot of money since he called before the flop and on the flop. However you might have been able to get more money out of the player if you slowed played which will be demonstrated in the next situation. Also if the player did not bet before the flop and you did you could have potentially caused every player to fold and you would have won a very little amount of money with a great hand, causing the “waste of a hand” feeling. The last situation that could happen is you could be putting all this money in the pot and since you are always betting, the player who is calling could potentially be trapping you. This could result in him turning over a flush, straight, trips, or maybe even a full boat. You should watch for this when a flop comes with suited cards, connecting cards, or paired cards. If this situation were to occur you would lose a lot of money and it would be a very bad beat.


The other choice you could have made in the situation with two aces is to slow play. Slow playing is essentially just making yourself appear weaker then you really are. In this situation a player before you bet and one other person called. Instead of reraising with your pocket rockets (AA) you could try and slow play it by just calling. Then if the flop came As 2d 6d or something like that you could check instead of betting. This would make it seem like you didn't have a very good hand and if you are trying to just get a free card. You are also giving your opponent the chance to bet so that you can either reraise him or just call and wait till Fourth Street where you could get more money. If Fourth Street came and it was a low card that wasn't a diamond then you could check again and hope that your opponent bets. If he bets then you might want to reraise him because the chances are his pot odds tell him to call and play until 5th street. On Fifth Street you have the option of betting or check reraising, and depending on whom the player is and what the board is, you will have to make the discussion for yourself.


The problem with this strategy is you could potentially keep checking and waiting for your opponent to bet and if he doesn't you will again “waste a hand” and not make any money. Also by using this strategy and checking you could give the other player a chance to get a free card that could outdraw you and beat you. As you can see, slow playing can earn you a lot of money and confuse the other players, or it could lose you pots by being outdrawn or just cause you to waste your hand.