[fishyak]

Slowplaying is one of the subjects here that tends to get strong negative emotional reactions, but not much analysis. I admit that my opinion has been that there is a limited place for slowplay, particularly live. But I want to look more closely at the math and ask the question, is slowplay which gives people the chance to try to catch up worth it?

Here is yesterday's hand from 4/8 @ Commerce. Table has quieted down and is fairly LAP at the moment.

3 limpers to me. I have KQo in HJ. My raise buys me the Button. I get 4 callers. (9 SB). Flop is QQ6r. Assume for this discussion that if I bet, they fold around. There were visual clues that was the case. Check around.

Turn is an A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], putting two hearts on the board. 3 checks and the player next to me bets into me. With two hearts on the board, slowplay time is over. I raise. All fold back to the original bettor who calls. (6 1/2 BB)

River A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]! I get checked to. The guy is worried I have AK. He has A5s. I know he has an Ace. I check. He has always made the call on the river before.

I risked 4.5 BB to try and get just 1 BB more as it turns out. Still, my Villian had to hit a 2 outter, a 20 to one shot, to best me. So the math of the slowplay still looks OK, but the impact on my stack, and I am steaming over it, etc., bring other factors into play. Should I give up a small math edge by betting the flop? (Again, just go with my assumption that everyone would have folded. It does happen. See Mr. Weak Tight's post. I would suggest reading that post in conjuction with one before you respond. In his post, he bet and took down the pot. In this pot, I didn't and got caught.)

Thoughts on the math? Thoughts on the non-math elements?