Slow Playing in NLHE Cash Games
There is a tendency for players to want to check monster hands in the hope that their opponents will bet. This addiction with being deceptive is one that is widespread amongst many poker players. However it is based on misconceptions brought about by seeing other forms of poker and through not understanding the differences.
For example, let us look at a limit Texas Hold’em poker game where one player raises from a steal position and the big blind called with A-J. The flop came A-7-4 and the big blind decided to check and then call to disguise the strength of his hand. In this instance a check could induce his opponent to keep on firing on the betting rounds where the limits double.
So in this instance the slowplay is viable. Or how about taking a situation from tournament poker! A player with 18 big blinds open raises and the big blind calls. The big blind has a stack that is not much bigger than the pot size and when they check, our hero who has flopped top two pair and in this instance decides to check it back.
Texas Hold’em Cash Games
Here the payoff or potential payoff is your opponent’s entire stack as they may decide to launch a bluff attempt based on your apparent weakness on the flop when you checked. Look at the differences here with no-limit cash games, one instance was a limit game where the reward for not betting on the cheap better round on the flop could have been extracting bigger bets on the turn and river and the other was in a tournament where the blinds had risen so sharply that the average stack size was small compared to the size of the blinds.
Now compare these examples to a deep stacked no-limit Texas hold’em online poker game where both players had 100 big blinds before the hand started. Our hero raises before the flop to 3.5 big blinds and it gets called by the big blind. The pot has now around 7 big blinds in the middle if you factor in the small blinds money and the rake. Our hero has Q-J and the flop comes A-K-10 to give him the nut straight.
Simply Make The Bet
The big blind checks and I see many people check behind in this situation. But what this has effectively done is to reduce the hand from four betting rounds to three. What this means is that stacking your opponent will now be that much more difficult simply because the pot will not escalate enough with one less betting round.
If our hero checks this hand and another straight card comes like a jack then not only may his opponent hold a queen for a split pot but if they don’t hold a queen then the board looks so scary that all future action will dry up anyway.
If you bet the flop and your opponent folds then the chances are that there was nothing to win anyway. But if our hero had bet say 5 big blinds on the flop and that bet was called, this would have then placed 17 big blinds in the pot for the turn round. Another pot sized bet and call on the turn would have put around fifty big blinds in the pot by the river which is now close to being an all-in situation.
This article was produced by Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Related posts:
- Taking a Look at Middle Pairs in Cash Games
- Playing an effective short stack strategy
- Bluffing in Online Poker
- Playing a Paired Board
- Hitting and Running in Cash Games
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