Slowplaying in MTTs: Three Spots Where It Prints Chips

Slowplaying a big hand isn’t optimal… usually.

When you have a big hand, you want to make the pot big.

But there are considerations that, when taken into account, can make slowplaying the right thing to do. In fact, it may even be the best thing to do.

In this article, I’m going to show the three situations where you can slowplay your hand, securing more double-ups and big chip leads.

But first…

Why Not Just Check-Raise?

Among the many frustrating scenarios tournament poker presents, misplaying a big hand for a meager pot is up there.

This is why check-raising is so important.

Check-raising from the Big Blind is the primary method solvers use to ensure value gets rewarded when defending from the blinds.

By taking the betting lead, you shift control of the pot to yourself. This is great when you have a strong hand or a combo that wants to pressure your opponent’s range.

But herein lies the problem with fast playing: what if you put pressure on a hand that you actually want to continue?

Enter the slowplay.

How about letting them do the damage? As the saying goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Onwards, warrior!

Situation #1: When Your Opponent Bets Big

In general, betting big with middling-strength hands or hands with showdown value isn’t very good.

You bet big with big hands. I know — very deep, super advanced stuff. High stakes.

Basic as that is, it has implications for your nutted hands.

When facing a stronger range, you should check-raise less.

The incentives for check-raising are one part your hand class, one part your opponent’s bet size, and one part your effective stacks.

You want to check-raise when you have a strong hand, face a small bet, and have plenty to play for.

When you have a strong hand and face a big bet, you start to see more slowplaying — the bigger the bet, the more slowplay is used.

For example, let’s say Under the Gun (UTG) open-raises off 50bb. You defend the Big Blind (BB) with Kc Jd.

You see an As Qh Td flop.

What do we expect from UTG?

Lucid GTO – UTG flop strategy facing BB check on AsQhTd (50bb effective stacks). UTG c-bets 70% pot most of the time (94% frequency), 30% pot very rarely (6% frequency), and never checks.

If you guessed a lot of betting, you’re right.

In fact, no checking.

But notice the amount of big betting: UTG bets the larger size 19 times out of 20.

In other words, they really like this board, if not their hand.

Let’s compare your response to the villain’s different bet sizes and see what we can learn.

Lucid Poker – BB KJo strategy facing UTGs 30% pot c-bet on AsQh Td (50bb effective stacks). Light Red: Raise 38%. Dark Red: Raise 42%. Green: Call.

Lucid Poker – BB KJo strategy facing UTGs 70% pot c-bet on AsQhTd (50bb effective stacks). Light Red: Raise 36%. Green: Call.

There is a noticeable difference between calling (slowplaying) frequencies depending on size (above left: small size, above right: larger size).

• Versus the smaller c-bet, you have so much to play for that you want to start making the pot bigger, which means less calling.
• Versus the larger size, your opponent’s range is more polarized. This means you should expect follow-through bets (turn/river barrels) more often. Knowing your opponent will slow down less often means you still get the double-up in the passive node.

Note: Check-raising is still the dominant response with the top of your range. This is good for your balances and bluffs since some of them will under-realize by playing passively. Remember, if you’re going to be check-raising at all, your range will be built around the top of your range.

Situation #2: When You Are Shallow Stacked

Here is the same situation as earlier, but playing 15 and 20bb stacks.

Take a look.

Lucid GTO – BB KJo strategy facing UTGs 50% pot c-bet on AsQhTd (15bb effective stacks). Green: Call.

Lucid GTO – BB KJo strategy facing UTGs 50% pot c-bet on AsQhTd (15bb effective stacks). Light Red: Raise, Green: Call.

There’s a lot of green (calling).

Playing shallower, we check-raise the nuts a lot less.

At 20bb, the script has flipped from the 50bb strategy.

At 15bb, slowplaying is the only option the solver likes.

While the strategies have flipped, the underlying mechanic has stayed the same — the stack-to-pot ratio (SPR).

What do you want to happen when you have a big hand?

You want to get all the money in.

When deeper-stacked, playing out of position with a big hand, this is what the solver is thinking about: you want the SPR to be low enough that stacks are in by the river. If the opponent bets small, you should raise; otherwise, the SPR will be too high to get stacks in naturally.

It’s when the opponent bets big that calling works its way into the strategy. The villain is lowering the SPR for you.

But short stacks don’t have this issue.

Playing so shallow to begin with, getting stacks in doesn’t require as much effort on your part.

Shallower stacks = lower SPRs.

This is why, off 15bb, you don’t 3-bet pocket aces from the Big Blind versus any position, and why you flat-call with them off 20bb.

Lucid Poker – BB vs. BTN open-raise (15bb effective). Light Red: 3-bet Non All-in, Dark-Red: All-In, Green: Call, Blue: Fold. AA and KK slowplay.

Lucid Poker – BTN vs. CO open-raise (20bb effective). Dark-Red: All-In, Green: Call, Blue: Fold. AA and KK slowplay.

The shallower you are, the more you can slowplay.

Situation #3 – Safe Turns For Villain’s Range

Up until now, we’ve only looked at flops. But when talking about slowplaying, we usually mean something like double or triple-checking to the raiser.

A good time to fast-play on the turn is when rivers will slow your opponent down. For example, they bet big on the flop, they follow through with a big bet on the turn, but check back the river when it gets scary.

Let’s say you have the same hand on As Qd Td 6s instead. They bet big on the flop, you call. They bet big on the turn. Now what?

Lucid Poker – BB v UTG 50bb effective. BBs KJo facing turn barrel (84% pot) on AsQhTd6s. The dominant response with straights is to move all-in.

In this instance, the river bringing a flush or straight completer, or board-pairing cards, can kill your action. Your opponent’s hand, once worthy of stacking off, becomes mere showdown value. By check-shoving, you lock in their hands that can’t fold now, whether made hands or strong draws. You want to get it all now.

Understanding the above helps clarify when to slowplay.

The best turns to slowplay are the ones that (at minimum) maintain the EV of your opponent’s flop value range or improve it.

Some turn cards might not improve their top of range but do elevate the middle or upper-middle region of it. Bonus points if the card works the opposite for your range.

If the card makes your opponent polarize, meaning bet big, this is usually a good indicator that you can or should slowplay.

Let’s say the turn brings a deuce and no backdoor flush draw.

Flop: As Qh Td

Turn: 2c

This is a fairly bricky card except for improving your suited A2, Q2, and T2.

What does UTG’s range want to do? Let’s see.

Lucid Poker – UTG v BB 50bb effective action breakdown. UTG strategy facing BB check on AsQhTd2c after BB check-called 70% pot bet on the flop.

UTG wants to bet more than it checks, and to bet big when it does.

This is really good for the nut straight since the double barrel with the larger bet size signals a river all-in is incoming. C’mon baby…

This is key to slowplaying.

You want to slowplay when, by all indications, it’s reasonable to expect your opponent’s stack to go in on the river provided they maintain the betting lead.

Summary

Slowplaying is an effective strategy used by strong hands in No Limit Texas Hold’em. It should be used sparingly, while check-raising should be used most often. Some benefits of slowplaying include protecting the low-EV combos in your range from being blown off, and keeping hands in your opponent’s range that will continue to fire but fold when you re-aggress.

In this article, I outlined three situations where slowplaying gets in the mix:

1. When your opponent uses a large size. Big bets indicate polar ranges that expect more follow-through aggression.
2. When you’re playing shallow stacks. Lower SPRs mean there is less work involved in getting all the chips in.
3. When the turn is safe for your opponent. Dry turn cards mean your opponent doesn’t have to worry about major equity-shifting rivers. There’s less urgency for you to get the money in before an action killer is dealt.

Next time it seems like your opponent’s foot is on the gas, live a little. Go ahead and check-call dem nutters.

To read more about using controlled aggression in MTTs, read: The Hidden Mechanics of C-Betting: Lessons from Phemo