The Evil Slow Play

Slow Play – Playing a strong hand as if it were a weak hand in order to deceive your opponents.

You don’t see it too often in the micros or low limits, but sometimes a player will slow play a big hand. Most of the time you will see a slowly played flop and a fast played turn and river. Some players wait until the river. I did not expect the slow play here, and he got me.

PokerStars 0.05/0.10 Hold’em (9 handed) [url=http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi]converter[/url]

[b]Preflop:[/b] Hero is CO with 9:spade:, J:heart:. MP3 posts a blind of $0.05. Hero posts a blind of $0.05.
UTG calls, [color:#666666][i]1 fold[/i][/color], MP1 calls, [color:#666666][i]1 fold[/i][/color], MP3 (poster) checks, Hero (poster) checks, Button calls, [color:#CC3333]SB raises[/color], BB calls, UTG calls, MP1 calls, MP3 folds, Hero calls, Button calls.

[b]Flop:[/b] (13 SB) 6:diamond:, 2:club:, J:club: [color:#0000FF](6 players)[/color]
SB checks, [color:#CC3333]BB bets[/color], UTG calls, MP1 folds, [color:#CC3333]Hero raises[/color], Button calls, SB calls, BB calls, UTG calls.

[b]Turn:[/b] (11.50 BB) 9:diamond: [color:#0000FF](5 players)[/color]
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, [color:#CC3333]Hero bets[/color], Button calls, SB folds, BB calls, UTG calls.

[b]River:[/b] (15.50 BB) 9:heart: [color:#0000FF](4 players)[/color]
BB checks, UTG checks, [color:#CC3333]Hero bets[/color], [color:#CC3333]Button raises[/color], BB folds, UTG folds, [color:#CC3333]Hero 3-bets[/color], [color:#CC3333]Button caps[/color], Hero calls.

[b]Final Pot:[/b] 23.50 BB

Results below:
Hero has 9s Jh (full house, nines full of jacks).
Button has Js Jd (full house, jacks full of nines).
Outcome: Button wins 23.50 BB.

I don’t think I should have played that any other way. I think I should rather pay off slow players than miss bets fearing an unlikely slow player, at least in small stakes. Note that I did not have any tells, so the slow play is surprising here, but may be suspected in other situations.

Many players like to slow play many of their hands, like a set of Kings or such. This is rarely correct in small stakes games because many players will call with virtually any piece of the flop. In the above example, this player (maybe accidentally) pulled a pretty good play. After his mistake preflop of not raising, he used his position on me to slow play until the river. Probably accidentally again, he raised at just the right time (when I thought he probably had a 9). I say accidentally because this player has a VP$IP of 87% and (besides that hand) lost money on pretty much anything he touched.