There Are Other Ways to Set Traps Besides Slow Play

When some no-limit hold'em players think of “traps,” they immediately think of “slow play.” In fact, some will equate the two, mistakenly believing that this is the only way to trap an opponent after the flop.

Trapping actually refers to a broader post-flop strategy that can, but does not necessarily, involve slow playing. You can “trap” and still play the hand “forward” by betting and raising for value.

Setting a Trap with Slow Play

We are all familiar with the Slow play, a strategy that can work especially well in certain situations, particularly against aggressive opponents. It is like the opposite of bluffing. Instead of betting with a weak hand, you check or call with a strong hand, giving the impression through your action that you have a weak hand.

Matthew Pitt described a hand that provides an example of someone slow playing a strong hand with the goal of gaining as much value as possible.

With eight players remaining in the €5,300 High Roller, Enzo Del Piero raised with :8h :7h and was called by Pierre Neuville from the blinds with :Jh :9h . The flop came :9s :9d :Kd and Neuville made trips. Instead of donk betting, he chose to check and allow the preflop raiser to make a continuation bet, which is what Del Piero did.

Neuville simply called the c-bet and checked again after the turn card was very safe for his hand, a :4c , making it almost certain that his trips of nines remained the best hand. Del Piero checked behind this time and the river brought an Ac.

With other cards coming on the river, Neuville could have chosen this as the time to make a bet. However, he knew that the Ace would probably have improved Del Piero's hand to a good hand, but in this case it would have been the second-best hand. If this card had not improved his hand, it might have encouraged him to bluff and represent having the Ace in his hand. Neuville therefore checked again and Del Piero fell into the trap of going all-in.

Neuville called, won the pot and eliminated Del Piero.

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Setting a trap through a bet

While this was certainly an example of slow play, Neuville's call on the raise with Jh9h illustrates the key principle of the "trap" - playing a speculative hand and then finding a way to extract maximum value when the hand hits the board well.

Such trap examples can start in a variety of ways. A player might choose to open a hand with :Jh :9h – a “suited one-gapper” with the potential to flop a flush or straight draws. Suited connectors (e.g. :Qd :Jd , :9s :8s etc.) and small pairs also qualify as speculative hands that need to improve post-flop to overcome stronger starting hands.

When such hands improve, the likelihood of your winning value increases, as your opponents often think of the stronger starting hands first when others raise preflop. Especially if you have cultivated some sort of tight image, if you raise with :Jh :9h and the flop comes :Th :8d :4h , your opponent won't necessarily realize how well that board hit your hand (giving you both a straight draw and a flush draw). Or if you raise with :6d :5d and the flop comes :9c :5s :5h - a board that looks discouraging to a preflop raiser holding broadway cards.

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In such cases, continuation bets are more likely to be called, as are your turn/river bets with you being able to extract even more value. The “trap” here is achieved not by slow playing the hand, but by betting and/or raising with it.

A hand like this is beneficial in other ways, as it also affects your image. Did you raise with 65 and then bet post-flop? Some opponents won't realize how much of a value bet those were, and will instead remember what looked like very loose pre-flop play. You may have been tight, but now you look loose, and you're setting yourself up nicely to get action when you raise with a really strong starting hand.

Going ahead and betting after you have made a set with a small pair is another way to set a trap for your opponent to call you. You have :4d :4c and the flop comes :Qc :9d :4s . In some cases slow playing may be the correct alternative, but in others going ahead and betting will be even more deceptive and thus a more effective “trap” to catch an opponent.

However accomplished, setting a trap means underrepresenting the strength of your hand so that it encourages opponents to invest their chips when you have them beat. However, Slow playing – that is, checking and calling – is not the only way to underrepresent your hand. Betting can also show weakness in certain situations and thus send a message that you are not as strong as you really are.

Continuation betting on “dry” flops that seem unlikely to have hit the hand you raised with before the flop is one example. So, too, can “donk betting” – leading with a bet out of position after calling a preflop raise – on a drawing flop that might have hit your hand well. Even a postflop check-raise, often a very aggressive play that signals strength, can sometimes be seen as suggesting weakness, interpreted as a bluff rather than a genuine attempt to build a pot.

Conclusion

Make a slow play can be an effective way to get into big pots, especially against aggressive players. However, remember that there are other ways to set a trap, too, which include betting with strong hands in situations where your bets might look more like bluffs than value.

Article translated & adapted from the original: There Are Other Ways to Trap Than by Slow Playing