Slowplaying on the Flop

Play Texas Hold’em The First Two Cards: Early Position Part Five Playing Short-Handed What You Must Realize The Hands to Call With Another Problem Calling or Reraising Before the Flop What If It Is Three-Handed ? When the Blinds are Very Loose Leading on the Flop Calling on Fourth Street Slowplaying on the Flop Fifth Street A Note on Tells Playing Short-Handed Afterthought Part Six Playing in Other Non-Standard Games Wild Games Playing in Extremely Tight Games Playing Against a Live Straddle Strategy of poker of News of poker And is much another about poker



When you are last to act and you are against an extremely aggressive player you should slowplay some hands that don't seem to merit this strategy. For example, suppose you start withA© 10¨   and the flop is   Aª 6§ 2¨two people check, you are last to act, and one of your opponents is an extremely aggressive player. You should always check, whether you raised or just called preflop, because no matter what comes off, the extremely aggressive player will bet it on fourth street. Furthermore, with a pair of aces there is no overcard that can come to give an opponent a higher pair.11What if the top card was not an ace? Should you still make this play? The answer is that it depends on how aggressive your opponent is. If he is super aggressive, it might even be right to check your hand if the flop was9ª 4§ 2¨   and you have   10§ 9¨Of course the lower the hand, the less likely this tricky play is worth it. That is because there are more ways to be outdrawn by a hand you could have knocked out on the flop. Still, against super aggressive players you should often check any top pair on the flop. The less aggressive your opponent is, the higher the card needs to be. Judgment coupled with experience will help you perceive when the time is right to check a questionable pair.In hold’em, hands come up relatively often where you don't know whether you have the best hand or not, but you do know that if yon have the worst hand you will probably finish with the worst hand, and if you have the best hand you will probably finish with the best hand. These are the clearest cases to slowplay. Everyone thinks that you should slowplay the great hands. But in hold’em it's not how good your hand is that's important, but how likely slowplaying can cost you the pot.Therefore the hands that you slowplay are those hands that are most likely to retain their relative value in relation to the other possible hands. You don't have to have a great hand to be in that situation. A simple example would be when you hold two kings,and an ace with nothing else flops. You might be beat already, but not betting will only rarely make a difference. On the other hand, if you held two tens in the same situation, slowplaying can be expensive. A king, queen, or a jack can come on the turn.However, (and this is very important), no matter how unlikely it is that slowplaying will cost you the pot, it isn't something you do when the pot is big. So in multiway pots you should bet or raise, and do as instructed earlier in the text. You should also be more inclined to bet in a full ring game even if the pot is small. The reason for this is that they are more likely to have legitimate hands to pay you off. But when it is short-handed, and especially if you are against a very aggressive player, it makes sense to slowplay more hands than you normally would.