Dont Get Cute, by Josh Arieh

Why the slow-play isn’t anywhere near as sneaky—or as effective—as you may think it is
BY JOSH ARIEH / TWO-TIME WORLD SERIES OF POKER BRACELET WINNER

ONCE A POKER PLAYER GETS PAST the initial stage of playing the cards they are dealt, they move onto the stage of poker development where they begin to branch out and try new things. The first thing that every poker player becomes familiar with is a play called the “check-raise.”
Check-raising, or sandbagging, is another term for slow-playing. It means to either check or bet weakly when you have a strong hand. This much, most of you already know. What you might not know, however, is that this fancy play could cost you money, and now, with the modern-day poker player becoming more knowledgeable of standard plays like this one, you have to be a player that chooses to either adapt to the changes in the game, or get left behind.

Let’s look at an example of what I am talking about:
You’re in an online tournament, and in the early levels of play, the blinds are $50/$100. Let’s say you are in the small blind with pocket threes and $2,000 in chips. The under the gun (UTG) player (also with $2,000 in chips) raises to $300, and you are the only caller. The flop comes 2-3-7. Now there is $700 in the pot. If you check, assume the UTG with A-K bets about half the pot ($300) as part of a standard continuation bet. You decide to check-raise all-in, since a raise of three or four times his raise will have you pot-committed anyway. Your opponent now folds easily, and you win $700 in chips.

That’s good, but there’s a way to potentially gain significantly more value in this hand.
If you lead out at the pot for the same $300 here on the flop, UTG may likely call your bet. At this point, you are still winning $700 in chips and giving UTG a chance to catch up on the turn while drawing extremely thin. If you lead $300 and UTG raises, his raise is going to commit his stack to the pot, and now you have your opponent risking his whole stack against you with little hope of winning the hand. This scenario has you winning $2,100 chips, which is a much better value for your hand than the previous method of winning only $700.

This situation won’t always pan out perfectly, but with today’s more aggressive player and your bet now looking more like a steal out of position, your opponent will be forced to heavily consider making a play back at you.

Now, let’s look at this situation from another angle:
Say it’s the same hand for you and the same flop, but this time, your opponent has pocket tens or jacks. Now, say you check-raise the flop, or, to make things even more interesting, your opponent decides he wants to get sneaky and he checks behind you. Either way, you and your opponent will see the turn card. The turn comes a king. Now, the extra value you were hoping to get with your check-raise, or attempted check-raise, is going to go down, since that turn card is a scare card for your opponent. Your opponent will not like that card at all, and the chances of you getting your opponent’s whole stack, unless he is a complete donkey, have disappeared.

However, if you decided to lead out on the flop in that same situation, fast-playing your set, it disguises your hand as weak, and you will get your opponent’s whole stack in there for sure. Now, it is too late for him when the king drops, because his money is already committed, and you are already stacking his chips.

Check-raises are good for maximizing value versus bluffs, but often it is much more important to maximize value versus worse, made hands. So, if you pick off a bluff with A-K, or air on the flop, you win money, but you do not break your opponent. But if you fast-play your made hand and convince your opponent that you are just making a play at him, you get his chips and an image at the table that you have more than one trick up your sleeve.

It’s when you start getting cute that you start getting hurt. You should be the one dealing out the pain. Start adjusting your play to the modern style of players, and I’ll see you at the final table.

This article brought to you by Bodog nation. Play with pros Josh Arieh, David Williams, and Evelyn Ng at BodogLife.com.