Slow Playing - Sandbagging Galore Your Way To Winning

Slow playing is when you have a great hand, possibly the nuts, and you don’t want to give it away so you don’t play aggressively. You’re hiding the fact that you have a great hand.

It’s the opposite of bluffing where you don’t have a great hand but pretend that you do.

Slow playing can backfire if other people are doing it as well and you believe that they don’t have a good hand when in fact they do. So you should only use it when you are pretty sure that the body language and behaviour of your opponents is telling you that they don’t have any good hands and definitely not a hand that can beat yours. For instance, a flush on the flop is a great hand to slow play.

The idea is that the pot will build and most players will conribute into seeing the river at which point you will happily take the entire pot.

The beauty of slow playing is that it works well against good players who tend to be aggressive. This can only help but build up the pot value.

The best way to slow play is to make a small bet - this will make your opponents think you are bluffing. Too high and they really will think that you have a good hand and are playing super aggressive. You can check but this will only give your opponents a free card. Why give cards away for free when you are going to win?