[Closed] Slowplayers - How do you detect them?.

If somebody shows interest on the flop, U should check-fold if u have nothing or just make small so called "test-bets". testing your oponent is very good source of information.

Alright they are really hard to detect, but its possible.

Firstly if you preflop raise you know they have something good.
If you play SSS they will also know you have something pretty good, especially if you raise high. So they should put you on pockets or A with good kicker or something.

Now if they hit their set they will of course slow play. If you raise they will just call.

This is the sign actually. You goto ask yourself, why on earth will they call if they know I have a good hand. Especially if they call high or re-raise. Unless its a total fish he will know what he is doing.

Just try to put yourself into the shoes of your opponent after observing him for a while and think why he would call or raise.

But yeah I admit... detecting slow players is damn difficult. Normally you can see it only when you bet, he calls, you check, he bets. Depending on his bet size you can evaluate. And then again, he might be bluffing

K acctually I had AA or KK I think a while ago on a NL game. I was early position, so I slowplayed it preflop already. Resulting in a players calling after me. Then check, call. Ceck, call or raise depending on the players remaing. If heads up, just call. (also look at the flop if flush draws or anyhting, raise). River raise half or 2/thirds of the pot if the river card is not the highest on. He should re-raise. If its the highest one either check or minimal bet to get him to reraise.

See above is a slow play stradegy. Noone detected my AA and I won. Not sure I could have made more money playing aggresivly since players normally fold then. Especially sss players.

Originally posted by Dragar
K acctually I had AA or KK I think a while ago on a NL game. I was early position, so I slowplayed it preflop already. Resulting in a players calling after me. Then check, call. Ceck, call or raise depending on the players remaing. If heads up, just call. (also look at the flop if flush draws or anyhting, raise). River raise half or 2/thirds of the pot if the river card is not the highest on. He should re-raise. If its the highest one either check or minimal bet to get him to reraise.

See above is a slow play stradegy. Noone detected my AA and I won. Not sure I could have made more money playing aggresivly since players normally fold then. Especially sss players.

[X]bad play with AA

You know, i think its one of the best feelings in poker to beat limped AA when you sit in BB and have trash hand like 73o. Thank you for delivering that great feeling from time to time. If you havent yet lost big pot with AA that way, believe me, it will happen. Opponents will limp and flop 2 pair, you will suspect nothing because board like T72 rainbow will look so non threatening that you will pay big there.

Seriously - always raise with AA.
1. You dont want to have many opponents on flop. Perfect case - heads up after flop.
2. Raise because on lower limits people will call you loose anyway, by not raising you not only risk loosing big pot but also loose value. If you raise preflop its easier to get money in on later streets. Since you make bets in relation to pot its best to have big pot early on if you have monster.
3. You think its very bad to raise from EP and get no callers. Well that aint the best situation. But its way better than loosing big pot. If opponents folded to your raise they didnt have any playable hand. That means they wont pay big to you after flop either unless they hit very good hand. Good players wont. Bad ones will call whatever even preflop ♦

And i could probably think about a lot more reasons why limping AA is bad.

About slowplay, its hard to detect. Just make notes about unusual slowplay like example above - limped AA. And look out for slowplay we all play. When someone slowplays a hand he will still want to get money in at some point - he will raise somewhere in the hand. Line check/call flop and check/raise turn seems very strong if turn was blank Then its likely that someone slowplayed some hand. You not necessarily have to fold, just evaluate your hand with more caution.

Hi grimzor

Ok when I slow play like that I know that the range of hands going against me will be huge. If its a tight table they won't be that huge though.

I am ready to fold my AA at any point when I feel some hit two pairs or so like you said. It will be visible by his bets on the flop, river or so. Also chances of him acctually getting a 2 pair isnt that high.

Now think about odds towards money and everything.
If I limp an AA or make a minimal raise I will get more callers, plus of course I take the risks like you said. Now if I raise high, either all will fold or 1 player will call.

Heads up starts and he will fold to me on the flop most likely. Unless he hits his pair.... but then again he might have just hit doubles too, and now I am really in trouble.

I know that how I played my AA is regarded a bad play by a lot of players... but what I want is for my opponent to hit his pair, I won't achieve that if I raise against sss players. They just fold.

I just want to play different from time to time. If I just catch the bb and sb with an AA I consider it a bad move since I am always playing bss. I rather take the risk and get more money into the pot. My first bet on the flop will tell me if my AAs are beat or not beause a sss player will not slow play his two pairs most of the time (atleast not at the tables I am playing at). If they are beat I lose a blind, if they are not I will gain much more then raising pre-flop.

Hence I sometimes play it like that. Other times I raise it. Just depends on the other players on the table etc.

Originally posted by Dragar
I am ready to fold my AA at any point when I feel some hit two pairs or so like you said. It will be visible by his bets on the flop, river or so. Also chances of him acctually getting a 2 pair isnt that high.

Chance of hitting 2 pair is around 2%. For example if you have 4 callers multiply that with 4 and you get 8%. And thats only hitting 2 pair. Add chance of hitting trips 1.35%(x4=5,4%), add full house hitting chance 0.09%(x4 = 0,36%), then some straight and flush possibilities - it all adds up. Of course you can hit too but when you hit its kinda obvious and there will be much less action. If you hit straight or flush then it will be 4 cards on board, if you hit trips or quads it will be A high board which wont get you much action in most cases.

Anyway, i feel it wont be possible to convince you that limping aces is bad play therefore i wont do it. Play as you like.

Just one last idea for thoughts: if you dont get action on aces when raising, perhaps fix of this problem is not limping aces, but raising more other cards. You know if you are running stats like 15/4 its kinda easy to put you on hand what you are raising. If you play 15/12 - go figure...

Edit:

Just decided to play with numbers. On one site i found following "The chance of making 2 pair or better with JT suited 21.48%". Opponents limping in with suited connectors seem reasonable. Lets assume your opponents are reasonable. And to get chance of at least one hitting we cant just multiply. Take the opposite its 79,52% for each of them that they wont hit 2 pair or better. Lets assume that there are just 3 limpers. 0,7952 * 0,7952 * 0,7952 = 0,5028. So there is 50% chance that none of limpers will make 2 pair or better. Now the opposite of course is that at least one will make 2 pair or better. So if i did my math right then chance that someone will hit 2pair or better with 3 limpers when they each hold suited connector and dont share outs is 50%. All limpers rarely will have those connectors in real life but you get the idea.

And just wow, i got more into this. Put some hands into online equity calculator:

cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Ac 368287 43.29 481424 56.59 957 0.11 0.433
8h 7h 163398 19.21 686313 80.68 957 0.11 0.192
Ks Js 117274 13.79 732437 86.10 957 0.11 0.138
5s 5d 135267 15.90 714444 83.99 957 0.11 0.159
Ts 3c 65485 7.70 784226 92.19 957 0.11 0.077

So if we get 3 callers + BB with random hand our AA win in like 43% cases by river. Usually AA have like 80% chance of winning. So if someone likes sacrificing so much equity to sometimes win a couple more BBs (not neccessarily as sometimes we win more if our raise gets called) - its fine with me.

Ofc all the things i showed was made with big assumption - all hands get to river. Not a real life situation. Anyway i wasnt doing this for you, but for myself and maybe someone who might find this interesting. Wanted to see numbers behind this and even tho they are very approximate as i cant take into consideration all factors of real play i feel like i got my answer.

Originally posted by Dragar
My first bet on the flop will tell me if my AAs are beat or not beause a sss player will not slow play his two pairs most of the time (atleast not at the tables I am playing at). If they are beat I lose a blind, if they are not I will gain much more then raising pre-flop.

sorry, but this makes no sense to me...
you either lose a blind, or win a big pot?
in order to get to that big pot, you will need callers, which means you risk losing a big pot too, right?
you haven't shown any strength preflop, so there are probably more opponents and it's very hard to put them on a hand when they don't fold to your "first bet".
it's an unraised pot, so if they fold, you also just win a small pot on the flop, but you give your opponents the odds to suck out on you without you knowing if they just made tptk or something that actually has you beat.
if you're slowplaying aces preflop and then fold them postflop at the first sign of resistance, you're losing a lot of value imo...

the only time i ever slowplayed aces preflop was when i knew that the guy sitting in the BB always pushed allin preflop in unraised pots.
all the other situations, i rather win 1.5BB than lose 100

anyway, about the OP's question, people slowplaying their sets postflop...
it gets easier once you get to know the regular players and their playing style. if certain players cold call my preflop raise and don't fold to my continuation bet on a dry board, i get very suspicious and start thinking about pot control.
with unknown players or trickier boards, chances are i'm going broke...

Nice work grimzor.
Very detailed

There is no formula to detect slow-players, I think the more experienced you become the better you 'feel' slowplays. When I flop set of 3's on 38T board I want to throw my hand away on the river sometimes because I feel it went wrong, especially when I am IP. There is check-call, check-raise, and all-in river-bet, so there is set over set situation asnd the toughts are:" what the hell he can have showing so much strength on such a dry board", oh and the turn is deuce giving the board 2 same suits.

I always raise with AA/KK. - Sometimes if im being called ill overbet to get more people to fold but always always always - a set gets flopped that then turns into a full house.

Good explanations Grimzor. Nice work! Nothing I could add.