Slowplaying
Slowplaying is a strategy used to deceive your opponent into thinking that you have a weaker hand than you actually have. By initially playing your hand weak, you are giving confidence to your opponent that he/she has the stronger hand, thus inducing your opponent to bet into your winning hand. The end result is a much larger pot. Now there is risk to slow playing a hand, and it should be done carefully under the right circumstances.
David Sklansky (p144, The Theory of Poker 1999.) puts forward five requirements that need to hold before you consider slowplaying;
· You must have a very strong hand
· The free card or cheap card you are allowing other players to get must have good possibilities of making them a second-best hand
· That same free card must have little chance of making someone a better hand than yours or even giving that person a draw to a better hand than yours on the next round with sufficient odds to justify a call
· You must be sure you will drive other players out by showing aggression, but you have a good chance of winning a big pot if you don’t.
· The pot must not yet be very large.
Slowplaying is a good way to get better value for your very strong hands, but proceed with caution because you will be giving away a free card to your opposition; so you need to make sure that even when the opponent improves, your hand is still strong enough to win. Slowplaying is a fine art and played wrongly you will suffer a few bad beats but be sure to learn from mistakes and this can become a lucrative tool.
