Too slow, or did I keep my customers around?

[Luv2DriveTT]

Look at the board - its a scarey one for someone without a draw to a made hand. In this situation, Party players tend to be weak tight.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[Luv2DriveTT]

90% of the time I would agree, I am not a fan of slowplaying. But this situation was very unique. Please give me a logical +EV reason why raising is the correct move. I have the best hand, why risk loosing one customer who may not call a river raise if I raise on the turn?

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[jrz1972]

[ QUOTE ]
90% of the time I would agree, I am not a fan of slowplaying. But this situation was very unique. Please give me a logical +EV reason why raising is the correct move. I have the best hand, why risk loosing one customer who may not call a river raise if I raise on the turn?

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

While you might (note: might) lose one bet if somebody folds, you might collect multiple bets from the other players who like their hands. You'll collect multiple bets from flush draws. And you may well collect multiple bets from players who are just chasing because the pot is already so large.

I don't like quoting poker books because they don't have Biblical authority, but I'm going to make an exception here because while I don't have any particular credibility on this issue, Miller does. He lists four conditions that all have to be fulfilled in order for slowplaying to be feasible:

1. Your hand is very strong.
Okay, that's one in your favor.

2. The pot is small.
This pot is not small. The fact that the pot is so large means that people will tend to chase, and even if they don't you should be happy to take this one down.

3. A free card might give somebody a second-best hand but has very little chance of hurting your hand.
What card is supposed to hit on the turn that will give somebody a pay-off hand who doesn't already have one? An A? Why wouldn't an ace-chaser (who hits on the turn) read your for a K when you start raising there? Slowplaying trips is SOP for most Party players, so you're not really being all that deceptive by calling here and suddenly coming to life later on.

4. Your opponents will fold if you bet/raise but won’t otherwise.
This is the point that is not up for debate on this hand, at least in my experience. With the pot this large, with this many opponents, with somebody having raised pre-flop and with another player leading off, it is very likely that you're going to get some action. But not if you slowplay. If two or three people had just limped preflop, so there was a microscopic pot and nobody had shown any particular strength, then I can see being afraid of a bet/raise folding everyone out. Here though, it's hard to imagine that happening.

I almost never slowplay, so maybe I'm just misapplying something here, but it seems like at least two and probably three of these "necessary conditions" for slowplaying aren't being fulfilled. I honestly don't see this as being even close to a slowplay.