[-Oz-]

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This is a really provocative article.

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Thank you. I thought it was too and I was hoping to stir up a little controversy.

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I disagree with the statement "Once the pot is around 20 percent of your stack or larger, there is no shame in just taking it down with a normal bet, especially if a free card has any possibility of knocking you out of the tourney." Actually I think the converse is true: if the current pot is 20% to 50% of the money behind, you should be more inclined to slowplay than if the current pot were, say, 10% of the money behind. That's for two reasons: first, your discussion about giving your opponents correct implied odds, as in your example where you slowplay AT on a TT3 flop allowing your opponent with 77 to catch a 7; second the concern expressed by Hectorjelly in this thread that you want to bet your monsters in order to build a pot.

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Perhaps I'm dense, but I don't understand your argument here. The 2 reasons you cite are contradictory to your point: they are both reasons not to slowplay. It seems to me that, as the pot becomes a larger and larger portion of your stack, it becomes more important to take it down quickly, and the more disasterous it becomes to give a free (or cheap) card that beats you. The definition of "large" is certainly up for debate. I somewhat arbitrarily say 20%, but I'm willing to listen to arguments why that number should be different.

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I found your third example really interesting, where you attempt a steal with Q8, are called by the chip leader, and the flop comes Q86. The board offers a variety of possible straight draws, and if your opponent has a gutshot, then by slowplaying you are essentially risking 96K in chips to win 58K. (There's 58K remaining in your stack and 38K currently in the pot.) Of course you won't always win 58K more if you slowplay this flop by checking. For example, if your opponent has JT, you check behind on the flop, and the turn card is a deuce, there's a good chance your opponent will bet the turn, perhaps 20K and then you move in and he folds. If your opponent has JT and the turn is a jack or ten, then you almost certainly get all-in on the turn with your opponent drawing to six outs.

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Well, whether your cEV is higher by slowplaying will be a complex scenario depending on a large number of variables including your opponent's propensity to bluff, his view of your play, etc. My point was, most players (and I include myself in this group) probably would do better overall by simply taking down a large pot with what is very likely the best (but vulnerable) hand. This is opposed to weighing the potential small +EV edge by judging the risk/reward ratio of slowplaying vs the hand range of their opponent correctly.

Thanks for your comments.

-Oz-