In short, you should do it more often and with weaker hands. The two biggest drawbacks to slowplaying are missing out on the opportunity to build a big pot against second-best hands and the reverse implied odds of letting longshots draw for free. When you’re shallow, neither of those are particularly large concerns. You don’t need to bet every street to get the money in by the river, and the downside to letting Villain catch a miracle card just isn’t that big.
Villain in this hand is a successful tournament player who’s been buying in at shallow HSNL cash games lately.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (9 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP3 ($5487)
CO ($4388)
Hero (Button) ($2472)
SB ($7878)
BB ($2150)
UTG ($3592)
UTG+1 ($8701)
MP1 ($2544)
MP2 ($1277.50)
Preflop: Hero is Button with A
, A
6 folds, Hero bets $100, 1 fold, BB raises to $325, Hero calls $225
Flop: ($675) 5, 7, 5
(2 players)
BB bets $375, Hero calls $375
Turn: ($1425) 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks
River: ($1425) K (2 players)
BB bets $1450 (All-In), Hero calls $1450
Total pot: $4325 | Rake: $3
Results:
Hero had A, A (full house, fives over Aces).
BB had 2, A
(three of a kind, fives).
Outcome: Hero won $4322
To be fair, this is probably a lucky river for me. I doubt Villain would have shoved on a 9. Still, I was surprised by how weak his hand was. Once I call pre-flop, I doubt I’m ever folding a flop this dry, as I’ve already called off 10% of the effective stacks. A2 has particularly poor equity against my range, and I think he ought to just look at this as a pre-flop bluff and give it up there. Most people aren’t that disciplined though.
(a) Maybe on the river he was thinking the king would force him to call if you bet, so he was betting just in case you’d be weak enough to lay down a small pocket pair or another ace. That play would often work against less tenacious players than yourself, though obviously not when they’re holding AA.
I’m not saying that’s good play. I’m just saying that might have been his thought process.
(b) With a 42Bb stack, I would not have 3-bet his hand at all preflop, unless I thought you were weak enough to lay down a pretty big chunk of your range. I’d fold against a good player and call against a bad one. Which of course in this case means I would have folded.