Poker Strategy: Slow Playing

Merry Christmas, losers! If you think I will be taking today off, you would be wrong. I need to get this blog filled up with information, so I have to write something at least once a day. I’ll be talking about all sorts of general advice and strategies every day, so make sure you subscribe to my newsletter to the right, or my RSS feed.

On this fine Christmas day, I’ll be talking about slow playing a.k.a. sandbagging or trapping, a sure way to piss off fellow losers at the table when you catch them off guard with this technique.

The easiest way to think of slow play is basically that it’s the opposite of basic bluffing. In a bluff, you will have the makings of a shitty hand, but keep raising in an attempt to get your opponents to fold.

With slow play, you will have a very good hand, but instead of making big raises, you check or call, and let your opponents do the raising. This way, you can lure the entire table into the pot with what they think is a winning hand (or better yet, a bluff).

If you have several opponents behind you. you can trap them with an overcall this way too; normally when the river gives you a good hand, you will probably raise, forcing others into a tough spot (and in most cases, they will fold). If you’re playing slow with a good hand though, you will check and call until the very end, and in many cases the players behind you will call or even raise, when they would have otherwise folded.

This strategy works best when you are already a moderate player, and eventually you will be able to play a fine line of bluffs and slow plays. If you are bluffing a lot, players will already be more willing to call your usual bets and raises. However, if you try to trap them too much with slow plays, they will be less willing to fall for your bluffs.

Learn that fine line, learn how your opponents react, and go win some money!