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3.4 Poker Bets continued...
Slow Play
| Bet Type | Objective | Bet Range |
| Slow play | Act weak in the hope of inducing action from opponent | Check |
The slow play is a very powerful manoeuvre which can be used to extract additional chips out of an opponent who wouldn’t normally commit that many chips to a particular pot.
As effective as the slow play move can be, it does have increased risk as it gives your opponent a chance to catch up and overtake your hand. It is for this reason that we should only use this play with strong hands and only in certain situations.
The slow play basically works by acting weak in the hope of hiding the strength of your hand. Hopefully, this will then induce a bluff or at least a misinformed bet from your opponent and get him to commit chips to the pot.
Illustration
Your Hand Q
J
- Flop comes down 8 9
T
, you’ve just flopped a straight ! However a good opponent should spot that there is a straight possibility on the flop and may be cautious.
If you were to lead in and make a value bet of half of the pot, the chances are that your opponent may wonder if you have the straight and maybe fold. If you slow play this hand and check, your opponent may think that you are scared of someone holding a straight, and try to represent that he has it by making a bet hoping that you will fold and he can take the pot there and then.
You then have the option to either raise him (and reveal your strength) or just call and continue the slow play into the next round of betting.
By making this move you have got your opponent to commit chips to the pot and increased the size of the pot in a situation where you have a very strong hand.
Now the risk with the slow play move is that you give your opponent the chance to catch up, and also run the risk of giving your opponent a free card if he fails to bet and also checks.
This is why you should reserve this play for only the stronger hands, and never slow play if you think your opponent could be on a draw which would catch up with or beat your hand.
Slow play can also be used against a very tight opponent, where by you give him free cards in the hope that he might catch up a little (but not overtake) your hand, thus encouraging him to bet.
Slow Play is best used in the following situations:
- The texture of the flop makes your opponent suspicious of the hand you hold, and hence would probably fold if you bet
- You are playing a tight player who is hard to extract chips out of
- There are no draws on the board that could beat your hand
- You are playing a very loose player who almost always bets if you check and regularly bluffs
Overbet
| Bet Type | Objective | Bet Range |
| Overbet | Put maximum pressure on your opponent to make a mistake | 1x the Pot to 2x the pot |
An overbet is just as it sounds, it’s where you make an oversized bet in order to put maximum pressure on your opponent in the hope that he makes a bad decision.
An overbet can be used in two situations:
- In a bluff attempt – we are trying to take the pot and want to make it very expensive for our opponent to try and call out our bluff – in this situation we may be able to force out opponents who are only holding marginal hands
- In an attempt to build up the pot – if we are playing a particularly loose player or we have recently attempted a number of bluffs which our opponents have seen we may overbet the pot in the hope of getting a call – Our opponents may call thinking we are attempting another bluff.
All – In Bet
| Bet Type | Objective | Bet Range |
| All – In Bet | Put maximum pressure on your opponent to make a mistake | All your chips |
This is the maximum bet you can make and hence gives your opponent a very tricky dilemma.
It’s very similar to an Overbet but it is a very risky move due to the amount of chips you are committing to the pot and should only be used in certain situations.
You should always be aware if you are Pot Committed in a particular hand. Being pot committed means that you have so many chips already committed into the pot compared to your remaining balance that you can’t really fold to any bet.
In this situation it is always better to make the first move and go All-In rather than letting your opponent make a bet that puts you all in. Whys this? Because if you make the first move you have an additional way to win the pot, as you might force your opponent to fold, where as if you just call his bet putting you all in, you will have to beat him to win the pot.
The All-In bet is used a lot more in Tournaments rather than Cash games, so at the moment this bet should have very limited use in your strategy.
Final points on Bet Types
To finish off this section there are just a few more points to mention.
Vary Betting Size – although you have been given approximate bet size guidelines in each of the bet types above it is important that once you are comfortable with using the above bets you should start to vary the amounts of the bets, not drastically but if you always bet the same amount then once you start playing against better players they will start to read you like a book from your betting patterns, and you need to keep them guessing, and make it hard to read what hand you have.
Betting Patterns – You can start to try to spot these types of bets in your opponents betting patterns and this will give you information on what hand your opponent might have.
Fish don’t have a strategy! – Although you now have an arsenal full of well thought out bets, you have to bear in mind that Fish won’t have a strategy and won’t understand Pot Odds etc and so some of the more complicated bets above won’t work as effectively against weak players. Against weak players you should play a very basic betting strategy with plenty of value bets when you have a good hand. Once we move onto playing better players we can use these more advanced bets against them.
CONTINUE TO NEXT SECTION - 3.5 - Poker Challenge *Stage 4* $32 - $42
