How do you know your hand is beat when you slowplay overpair/2pair?

[AA suited]

when i slow play an overpair/2pair on a rainbow flop, i never see that bigger 2pair or set coming.

of course it's easier to fold the overpair if he's showing alot of strength.

How do you recognize that you are beat? i always see that raise as a good thing since i'm slowplaying?

[Barcalounger]

I'm dealing with the same thing by just dropping the slowplay from my bag of tricks until I'm ITM. Either it's the level of competition (22 and 33 party), or I am not good enough at poker yet (most likely), but the reward just doesn't seem to outweigh the risk. Most of the time my opponent gets to see a turn and river on the cheap, then they fold to my 1/2 pot sized bet. Or two more cards turn thier crap into gold and they get all my chips. If I always go fairly strong on the flop (3/4 pot bet) then I can scare out the inside straight draw, and still get the occasional TPTK who will donate thier money willingly.

[Laughingboy]

From what I've read, and from bitter personal experience, slow playing is a lousy idea with anything less than a boat (or trips with a very non-scary board, nut flush, etc.) unless you're VERY short-handed. You're giving the villains odds to draw out on you, and just throwing money away thereby. Greed has been my downfall a number of times. I'm working on learning to be happy with a decent sized pot with an overpair and just take it down on the flop.

[UTGplus1]

The slowplay should only be used when you have the nuts or virtual nuts. In these situations you slowplay because you want your opponent to catch up so they’re willing to risk all their chips. You never want to give your opponent a chance to catch up to your over pair or two pair because they won’t catch up they’ll pass you and now you have to decide whether it is right to risk all or more of your chips. Take the pot down now or make them pay to catch. Slowplay - Overpair, toppair, twopair NOT SO GOOD… quads & boats GOOD

[Gramps]

[ QUOTE ]
when i slow play an overpair/2pair on a rainbow flop, i never see that bigger 2pair or set coming.

of course it's easier to fold the overpair if he's showing alot of strength.

How do you recognize that you are beat? i always see that raise as a good thing since i'm slowplaying?

[/ QUOTE ]

Poker is a game of partial information which means there's always going to be a significant degree of uncertainty. It's not about "knowing you're beat," it's knowing where the proper "threshold" to go to war is given all the information you have (your hand strength, texture of board, opponent's approx. range of hands and how he'd play certain hands within that range given the betting sequence so far, etc.).

Even if you go to war against a better hand, it doesn't mean you misplayed your hand. A lot of times, given the information you had, you still made the correct play. Long run and process, long run and process...

[adanthar]

It is a good idea to slowplay when you are BOTH way ahead (or way behind) AND the guy with the second best hand is not likely to donate you free chips regardless.

If you have 88 on a board of 822 and you know your opponent has AA, slowplaying is pointless and may even be counterproductive (after all, running hearts could put a 4 flush on the board and make the guy fold his black aces).

If you have AK (or A2) on an A72r board and you think your opponent has a decent ace, slowplaying is also pointless. If you have AK on that same board and you put the other guy on KK-QQ, I would check on the flop and probably the turn.

If you have JT on a board of AJT in a raised pot and your opponents are not complete morons, I would *also* 'slowplay' the flop, but for entirely different reasons.

Finally, I leave you with this hand:
Quad tabling 50+5, I have AK, open raise to 90 in level 2 on the button with 1600 chips and am called by the tight/decent SB with 1000/random BB with some number.

The flop is 542, 2 clubs (I have the Kc), two checks to me and I check behind.

The turn is a red K, the SB bets 175 into the pot of 270, BB folds and I call. The river is a blank, the SB bets 400 into the pot of 620 and I call with the almost certain to be best hand.

That's a slowplay, too. It's why you're doing it and under what circumstances you're doing it that matters, not 'never slowplay' or 'slowplay the nuts' or 'slowplay every time you hit 2 pair'.

[Laughingboy]

Good post, AD. As always, there are no hard and fast rules like "never slowplay an overpair," but I think you'll agree that if there are any flush or straight possibiliies it's best to play fast. As you say, a slowplay is OK when you're way ahead.