i like to slow-play, like limping in w pairs/AK/AQ/KQ ... then check raising post flop from late position once the pot's built up, etc..

any tips for slow playing while not letting others make their straight/flush draws on the turn/river.... or other tips? thx..!

Yeah don't do it. Let me show you what "slowplaying" actually means:

1) Losing value
2) Being too passive
3) Be ultra exploitable
4) Play your cards face up
5) Did I mention it costs money?

If you never slowplay you won't be losing much, it is one of the most overrated plays used by beginners and mostly misapplied.

It is a fancy play the way you describe. Don't play fancy. Just make the best play you can.
This is really well explained in Theory of Poker, plus you'll get some street cred from dropping that you'd read such an old and well respected book. There are a list of conditions for when it would be correct to slowplay. You're ignoring those. Your 1 pair will get beaten a lot, and it isn't a correct hand to slowplay.

You stop people from chasing straights and flushes by raising PREFLOP. Not by slowplaying...

When you limp, you just let everyone and their mom overlimp behind you. Multi way pot have fun with top pair top kicker when you get raised and reraised.

This.
When you limp in pre, you make it more likely that you will lose. It's that simple.

Think we all missed this part, as well.

I was too busy face-palming to comment on that. :/

The only time I slowplay is when I flop the nuts against an aggressive player. Don't ever slowplay pre-flop.

Works in the Movies every time. The bad guy always falls for it.

There are spots where not taking aggressive action is correct.

Think 27TD where you can only raise your best draws for value and by doing so you turn your hand faceup, or a when a raise would help your opponent make a correct breaking decision. The information of your raise costs you more than the value of making it.
Think about your opponent's range before and after you raise him. He's a LAG who is barreling off 3 streets with his entire range. Against everything, you're a huge favorite and you welcome all action. After you raise back, there are times when he folds everything you beat and always gets it in with the range that beats you. You're manipulating his range by just calling down, even better if you get stacks anyway.

Classical slowplaying is about an opponent improving to a better hand that still doesn't beat your hand. The bold part is important. There's a parlay. His current hand won't call off, because if it would, slowplaying would be dumb. He's drawing to improve and once he does, he'll pay you the max and this is more than he would have normally. And the new hand he hits doesn't beat your hand.

In limit games, you can slowplay to get the extra half bet on the turn. The down side is that doubled stakes makes turn raises scary. A guy who might 3 bet the flop and bet the turn now just calls a turn raise because on the turn people don't mess around. In live games, bad players always slow play monsters and thus turn their hands face up. Sound familiar?

When you screw up slow playing you

• Actually give your opponents correct odds to draw out on you. Even if they don't, you're eliminating mistakes and helping their EV
• Miss value, like in the case where our OP limps monsters hoping to trap with c/r on the flop
• Play an imbalanced style that makes you easy to hand read

thanks, great tips... i see how much i still have to learn at this, I still suck at poker lol

but i remember one situation, at MGM when I had AA last-to-act, didn't raise pre, flop came J 5 J, and 2 villians 3-betted ahead of me, so I (wisely) folded my AA assuming it was a battle of J trips, which it was, my AA was no good. afterwards I told everyone at the table and one woman said I should've played aggressively Preflop, to induce folds, which sounds correct.

i stink bigtime at this, still tryin...thx for the insights

fwiw my biggest problem (playing live in vegas) is I'm weak-tight, so I'm trying to figure out how to make the best of that table image, which when I get a strong hand is "keeps looking weak but is actually strong" ...otherwise everyone correctly folds to any raising i do since narrow range/nut-peddling on my part..

It shows you are 'aware' of situations your are involved in when you can get away from a spot like you describe. You need to decide what you want to get from playing poker and if that means played ultraconservative (scared money) with your chips, then so be it. A bigger issue to me would be if you still went chasing after the pot in the hand described ... even if it was bet and called in 2 spots are you still willing to muck your AA hand?

Poker is about getting value from your good hands and 'not' giving value when you are beat, or at least limiting your beats. What folks here are encouraging you to do is to limit your 'exposure' when you have a good hand since they don't come around as often. And as you have seen in your example, they don't always win!!

By limiting your playing style you will ultimately slowly lose your stack since others will limit what they give you for value and big hands don't come around very often as it is in the flow of the game. GL

For what it's worth, there are MANY players in the lower limits of live play that will call pretty wide preflop even if you literally turn your hand face up, show them you have aces, and put in a raise. Don't slow play. Get your value and don't give free cards when you can get money in the pot while you're ahead. Just remember to be aware of aggression when they play back at you.

No, this is horrible results oriented thinking. They're bad live players and their advice is awful.

Also, telling everyone at the table about your hand is bad. It isn't as bad as it could be because they don't adjust well. Still, you just gave them advice on how to beat you.

I'd head over to the LSLNL forum, read their FAQ, and buy the book(s) they recommend for new live players.

In case this is not a LP check-raising troll:

Vs the standard loose passive bad players, you should only slow play when their range is almost exclusively air and when you can't be outdrawn. This is quite rare and as a beginner you are probably better off never slowplaying.

For example:
- Effective stack sizes are 100bb,
- you are on the BB with KK and face a 5bb UTG open and 3 callers. You make it 22bb and get called by BTN. Flop comes K72r.

BTN's range is super weak on this flop while your range crushes it. You have too much fold equity and the only hands that could call a flop bet are sets, AK (that you have blockers to) and AA. This is a good spot to x/c flop and x/r or donk turn.

But never slowplay preflop vs weak passive players.

In micros I would only slow play quads or straight flush and if the opponent happily calls no mater what, then I would not slow plays those either.

How can a guy spew off his stack into the nuts when the nuts check and call?

i've been here for years, still learning too slow; there's so many details to learn, that's what keeps it challenging; you're all relatively sophisticated at this, thx much for the tips..it's impressive 'how deep' the know-how runs, that's needed to compete

Here's a very old post that outlines some of the considerations of slowplaying:

FAQ: Should I Slowplay?

Slowplaying should be considered an advanced play. If you are a n00b and you are slowplaying you're almost certainly costing yourself far more money than avoiding fancy play syndrome and just playing straightforward.

Here's a spot where I decided slowplaying was the best option, since there was almost no value to be gained with the nuts on such a dry board, and I expected the laggy opponent to bluff at some point.



It's not every day that I raise pre and then check every street with the nuts (it can miss a lot of value on wetter boards), but it worked a treat this time. I check-raised huge on the riv, got called by top pair, and villain snap-quit all my tables.

FWIW, if the flop had been TTJ, I would have bet it for sure and probably won a bigger pot, but this flop and turn were useless in a value-betting sense, as villain has so few hands that can call.