Slow Playing a Big Poker Hand
You’ve seen the poker players on shows like World Poker Tour who when they finally make a big hand, either end up checking it down trying to induce a bluff from their opponent and therefore miss bets they could have collected, or, in the even worse scenario, when they let their opponent catch a draw cheaply and end up paying the opponent rather than the opponent playing them.
So when is it right to poker slowplay? Typically against players who are hyper-aggressive, and who will continue to bet at you at the sign of any weakness. Especially when you are playing tight, it is often a bad idea to scare those wildmen off, as they know when you raise, you have it, and they can jump ship quick. Aggressive players often love to try to run even the tightest players off their hands, so it can be very profitable to let them come after you when there a majority chance they won’t be able to hit a card to come after you.
Rainbow flops (where all the suits are different, thus avoiding the flush) and disconnected flops (where the odds of a straight draw existing aren’t so good, like 2 7 Q) are the perfect kind of board to maybe just call a bet or check to an aggressive player and let them think you’ve missed.
The real size of your hand, though, is super important here, as it is often wrong to slowplay just a pair (such as hitting your ace or king with big slick (AK), or bottom two pair, or some other kind of vulnerable hand where one card coming off could easily knock you down. Unless you’ve flopped the nuts, you’ll usually want to keep firing and make sure that pot stays in your court.
Slowplaying in poker definitely has its place, and it is up to you reading of the board’s potential and what you think your opponent is holding to decide when the time is right.
