Poker Drafting - a Selective Slow Play

When you're starting out and want to beat those low-limit games, it's often best to play mechanically. You make money from your opponents' habitual mistakes by being a solid player who doesn't go on tilt and who has patience. If you're now playing in middle-limit games, you've probably learned that lesson well.

But as you move up in limits and start to play against better players, you'll need to put some moves on them. You'll want to change your play from time to time to avoid being easy to read. This will mean occasionally deviating from your standard betting action.

Here's a move that you can use to mix up your game. I don't recommend that you make a habit of it, but it surely will help to prevent your opponents from easily figuring out what you hold. It is a type of slow play.

You've watched NASCAR, haven't you? Or, maybe you've seen a bicycle race. If you have, you're probably familiar with a racing strategy called "drafting." It works something like this: Although you may have the faster vehicle, you get right behind your opponent, letting him lead you. He uses a lot of energy to cut through the air. You, on the other hand, conserve energy by staying in the slipstream right behind him. While he is leading and you are following, you also deceive him into thinking you are slower than he and therefore unable to pass.

He uses more energy to drag you along while you save energy that you can use later, near the end of the race when he might have tired or been lulled into a false sense of security. You then use the energy you saved to pass him and go on to win.

Apply this to poker. Follow along behind your opponent's lead bets, allowing him to set the pace. Lull him into thinking he is ahead because you are weak. Reveal your true strength only in one of the latter betting rounds, when he believes he is committed to the hand and thus unable to fold. Your stronger hand stands up in a showdown as you take down the pot.

Here's an example of that play from a $20-$40 stud game at Foxwoods that I was in a while back. A deuce, to my left, brought in the bet. Three players folded to my opponent, who had a queen. He was a somewhat more aggressive than average player. He raised to complete the bet to $20. A player after him folded. The action was to me. I had a split pair of aces. Two players, including the bring-in, remained after me.

Most of the time, I would make it two bets. I have the advantage with my pair of aces and would normally want to be sure to knock out the remaining players to make it heads up with the queen. I wouldn't normally want to dilute the power of my aces by going to fourth street with more than just one opponent. It's a standard play that you've probably made many times. I know that it's what I typically do.

This time, however, I varied my play and just called. I was willing to risk having the players behind me call because I knew their styles of play pretty well. They were fairly tight and would tend to fold unless they really had a strong hand in this situation. They had low upcards, were not very good stud players, and tended to avoid risks in this game. I thought they would fold to the queen's raise no matter what I did. Second, tight players that they were, I was fairly certain I could knock them out on fourth street with a check-raise even if they called here on third street.

As it turned out, they both folded. I wanted the queen to lead the action while I passively followed behind in his slipstream. I appeared weaker than I really was – which was how I wanted to look. I hoped that my opponent would put me on a three-flush or maybe a wired pair with an ace kicker.

My move made even more sense when I took into consideration that my aggressive opponent might well have been on a bluff. This was certainly a possible play, given that I was considered quite tight and would probably have folded my ace unless I had a legitimate hand. If that were the case – that is, my opponent trying for an ante steal – by just calling, I would be encouraging him to incorrectly continue with his bluff on fourth street and maybe even fifth street.

On fourth street, I caught an offsuit jack. My opponent got an offsuit 8. I was high. I was tempted to try for a check-raise, but I decided to continue to let him set the pace. So, I checked and just called him when he bet. I presumed that he probably thought that I didn't improve my flush draw or my wired pair. I continued to draft behind him. If he was bluffing, so much the better.

On fifth street, I was dealt an absolutely useless offsuit deuce. My opponent didn't appear to improve, either, getting an offsuit 4. I decided to go for a check-raise, checking my ace into his queen. He must have been fairly convinced that I had absolutely nothing, because he bet – and I raised.

Some opponents would have been convinced that my check-raise on fifth street indicated that I had luckily hit a wired pair and improved to three of a kind. They would have folded. Similarly, if my opponent had been on a bluff, he surely would have folded to my check-raise. As it was, he called me.

I would have been pleased with a fold, but I wasn't too worried by a call. I figured that I was still about a 2-to-1 favorite with my aces against his queens. But even if I was wrong and he had already hit his two pair, I still had about a 40 percent shot at winning the pot.

On sixth street, I still failed to make aces up, getting some unhelpful low card. He didn't seem to improve, either. When I bet, he called.

On the river, I caught a jack for aces up. I bet, and he called me. I showed him my two pair and he folded without showing me his cards. I guessed that he had only the pair of queens, because he was the type of player who tended to complain about losing narrowly, showing his cards in the process.

When I look back on this "drafting" play, I see that it helped me extract at least one extra bet, and perhaps many extra bets from my opponent, who might well have folded had I raised him on third street with my superior hand. Of course, this play might have backfired if he had made two pair and I had not improved. On balance, it made sense to me not because I ended up winning, but because it made me less predictable in the future.

There was one additional advantage that you might find worth considering. Think about the aggressive players who are sometimes sitting to your right. If they start to figure you out as a relatively predictable, tight player, they will be more likely to take shots at you by bluffing and semibluffing – making it more expensive than you'd like to draw to your flushes, straights, and low pairs. You want to discourage them from making aggressive plays when you have a calling but not a raising hand. By punishing them for speeding against you, as you did in this hand, you will cause them to pause before making their aggressive plays in the future. They'll have to think twice, concerned that if they're speeding, you might once again just sit on their bumper and pass them later. And that's exactly the kind of second thought you'd like your opponents to have.