Why You Shouldn’t Slow Play

When playing poker your main goal should always be to win the most money as possible regardless of whether you are playing cash games or a tournament. Basically regardless of the strategy that you use you want the same ending result which leads you to money. One of the biggest down falls for many poker players especially those who are just starting out is trying to slow play at the wrong times or just way too often. Most of the time slow playing is only counterproductive. Since your main goal is to earn as much money as possible how will that happen if you continuously are checking your hands. You can only build the pot by betting so why slow play?

Here is a prime example of slow playing:

Effective stacks $400; blinds are currently $2/$4. You’re dealt 5 Hearts 5 Diamonds on the button. A player who has an early position raises $8 and you make the call.

The flop then comes 4 spades, 5 clubs, A clubs. Your opponent then bets $20. You call and the turn is the 4 hearts.
Your opponent bets $30 and you only call. The river is a 8 diamonds. Your opponent then checks and you bet $40 in which they call. You show your full house and he mucks his A diamonds King hearts. You collect a total of $196 and give yourself props for such a good hand. This is not a good outcome especially since the other player had top pair with an excellent kicker.

When you flop what is known as a monster hand you want to take as much of your opponents stack as possible which is difficult to do by slow playing. For many players poker is a game of patience and after folding hands such as J-2 or 7-3 all day you have been waiting for this great hand so why blow your chance to earn some decent money. By trying to slow play you are practicing a crappy strategy mistake that several other players often do as well.

Big Hands Deserve Big Winnings

Once you have that hand that you have been waiting patiently hours for its time to take action and make your stack grow. Don’t waste this perfect opportunity by slow playing.

Why shouldn’t you slow play? By slow playing you will only earn a small pot. Your goal should be getting your entire stack into that pot along with the other players stack as well. You can’t accomplish this by checking or making minimal bets. So how will you be able to push large amounts into the pot if there is only $12 in there to begin with? If you make continuous bets throughout the entire hand allowing it to grow naturally it won’t look as bad when you try to push all in or at least the majority of your stack.

Now let’s use the same example as above but without the slow playing.

Effective stacks $400; blinds are currently $2/$4. You’re dealt 5 Hearts 5 Diamonds on the button. A player who has an early position raises $8 and you make the call.

The flop then comes 4 spades, 5 clubs, A clubs. Your opponent then bets $20. Now instead of slow playing you decide to take action and raise it to $50 and your opponent calls. The turn brings the 4 of hearts.

Your opponent decides to check. There is now a total of $116 in the pot and $284 left in your stack so you choose to bet $125. Your opponent chooses to call. The river brings an 8 of diamonds. Your opponent then checks and you bet your remaining stack in which they call. You show your full house and he mucks his A diamonds King hearts.

Now by continuously building the pot along the way upping the bet each time it was easy to get your entire stack in the pot with a caller at the end of round. Once the pot builds to a larger amount it will give the other player incorrect odds. They will often fill pot committed once they make it to the river so will call whether they are sure they will win or not. He will often assume that the pot offering a 4-1 so it would be difficult for him to fold his top pair.

Slow Playing May Work

At times there are situations that you will be in that slow playing is the appropriate strategy. A single poker strategy will not always work for every hand or situation. Things that you will need to take into consideration before deciding to slow play includes things such as your opponents playing habits, your image, table dynamics, and how everyone seems to be playing. I’m not saying that you should never slow play but it should be done with caution and only sparingly.

One situation that may be appropriate is when playing against a very aggressive player who often tends to place strong bets even when holding a very weak hand. Normally these types of players will continue to play aggressive until another player decided to challenge them by raising their original bet. In this case if you have a strong hand play along with them until you are at the end of the hand and the reraise his river bet. If he checks the river then you may choose to bet.

Below is an example of an appropriate time to slow play:

You are currently playing against an aggressive player which you have seen bet several times when they had nothing.
Effective stacks: $150; blinds $1/$2. You’re dealt J h J s in the small blind. The aggressive player raises to $10 UTG and everyone folds to you. You choose to just call. The flop then comes 3 s 5 d J c. You check and your opponent bets $30 and you choose to simply call again. The turn then comes 3 h and once you check your opponent bets $90. Again you just call. The river then brings the A of hearts. You bet $150 and your opponent calls with Ace c 4 h. You of course win the pot with your full house.

In this particular case your opponent is sinking himself by doing all of the betting so there is no reason to raise and cause him to fold when you are obviously going to profit from the hand in the long run. As you already know by observing his play that he will bet with almost any type of hand if he thinks he will eventually cause you to fold so allow him to think he is stringing you along.

This isn’t really a common situation but can happen and you just need to be aware of how the others at your table play in order to act on these types of situations. You will want to make sure that the other player will continue to bet as long as you don’t raise them. You don’t want to make the mistake of slow playing and then them choosing not to bet which will give you a small pot in the end which you want to avoid. It can often be a risky move to do a check raise because if on the river if both parties check you will lose out on value.

With everything being said there is no reason for you to stop slow playing all together but to play wisely and only choose to do so when it can be profitable for you. If you grow a habit of slow playing you will lose out on a lot of money in the long run.

Posted by Joel on Apr 29 2010. Filed under Poker Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry