Poker And Slow Playing – When You Should Feign Weakness When Really Holding Strength

Poker is a game of information. Control what information your opponent is receiving, and you can maneuver him into making a mistake. There are two primary ways to control this information… By bluffing, or by slowplaying.

Bluffing is making a strong bet, when your hand is, in reality, weak. You are trying to get a better hand to fold. Slowplaying, on the other hand, is to hold a very strong hand, but play it weakly. This is done to entice a weaker hand to bet into you.

For instance, you decide to go to the local casino, and play a few hands of Texas Hold’em. Not many hands are coming your way, and then you look down to see pocket 7′s.

Your last to act, and one person has raised the pot in front of you. No one else has called. You decide to just call, and see what the flop brings.

Then, the flop comes down… It’s 8 of hearts, 7 of spades, 2 of clubs. You hit the jackpot! Middle set. Now, you want to figure out how you can make the most of it.

The only thing is, your opponent stares at the board, and then checks to you. You figure he missed the flop. If you bet now, he’ll probably fold, and you won’t win much at all with your monster hand. You decide to check it as well.

The turn card comes out, and it happens to be a King spades. Hopefully, your opponent likes this card. After looking a few moments at the board, he bets half the pot. This is working perfectly according to plan. You decide to call, and see what he does on the river.

Finally the river card. It’s a 2 of heart. No flush, no straight, and only a King high board. Suddenly, your opponent decides to push all his chips in the middle! You really couldn’t ask for much more. You call instantly, and he rolls over KQ. You take down the pot with your set of 7′s.

So, you won a monster pot, deserving of your monster hand. However, it might never have happened, except you were able to slowplay it.

But, there are some rules to the slowplay. Follow them closely, and you can use this technique to pull out profits in poker.

First Rule: Hand strength is a must! Without it, you are just giving free cards for them to take your money with.

Second Rule: Your opponent need to be able to make a good hand. If he’s holding overcards to the board, this may work. If he’s holding trash, it probably won’t.

Third rule: Any card that can come must not be able to hurt your hand. We want to make sure the gun he has is firing blanks, not real bullets.

Fourth Rule: If your opponent happens to call with anything, then bet anyway. He’s gonna call…not sense in playing slow to prevent a fold.

Fifth Rule: If the money you can win in the pot is already a large amount…then bet away. You’d rather take down a big pot now, than slowplay and lose a huge one later.