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Slowplaying

Slowplaying basically means to play a hand weakly on one round of betting in order to lure people in for later bets. Hands that are correct to slowplay don’t come up very often. For a slowplay to be correct the following criteria must be met:

1. Your hand must be very strong.
2. You probably will chase everyone out by betting, but you have a good chance of winning a large pot if you check.
3. The Free Card that you are giving has good possibilities of making second-best hands.
4. This free card has little chance of making a better hand for someone or even of giving him a draw to a better hand with sufficient odds to justify a call.
5. The pot must not yet be very large.

An example of a possible correct slowplay is to check a set of jacks when the flop comes notice that in this example, an overcard on fourth street can easily give someone a second-best hand.

Conversely, with a lot of opponents, someone could pick up a flush draw or an open-end straight draw on the turn and could pick up a flush draw or an open-end straight draw on the turn and could then beat you on the end.

So even here, slow playing may not be correct if the pot has become large ( or if several bad players, who may call your bet with as little as one overcard, are in the pot.)

Keep in mind that if the situation is not perfect, slow playing is almost never correct. For example, if the flop is and you have you usually should bet or raise on the flop, as your opponents can hold many possible hands, including flush and straight draws.

Another time that you generally should not slowplay is when you have flopped the absolute nuts. ( Exception: when you have all the goods cards; for example you hold A7 and the flop is A77.)

This is because an opponent also may have flopped a very strong poker hand and will give you plenty of action. For instance, don’t slowplay the nut flush if there is a chance that someone else also may have flopped a flush.

If he is slow playing, you will have cost yourself a lot of money. Remember that for slow playing to be correct. Your opponents must have the opportunity to make a good second-best hand.

As an example, if you hold two aces and a third ace flops, it is generally correct to bet and pick up the pot.

In this case, there is usually not a second-best hand for your opponents to make, but a miracle card could cause you to lose the pot. ( Of course a check is right if you think it will entice a bluff.)

A strategy similar to slow playing is to just call someone else’s bet in order to reraise a raiser behind you or to go for a raise on fourth poker street when the bet is twice as large.

To do this, your hand must be almost as strong as a regular slow playing hand. For instance, when you flop top two pair and the player on your immediate right bets into you. You may want to wait until the turn to raise. That is, just call on the flop.

This play online poker is optimal if you are sure that this player will bet again. However, should a third player raise behind you, it is probably better to reraise on the flop and gain extra bets from all your opponents.

Here’s an example. Suppose you limp in with you are raise by an aggressive poker player behind you, and a player in the blind calls. Now suppose the flop is and the player in the blind leads out.

You should just call with the intention of raising him on fourth street. However, if the original raiser now raises behind you, you usually should go ahead and reraise. This would be especially true if this opponent is the type of player who would raise with two overcards hoping to get a free card.