Slowplay in poker is a technique where a player intentionally plays a strong hand as if it was a weak or marginal in order to trick your opponents by making them think you don’t have a strong hand. This type of play has the goal of inducing your opponents to either make bets by bluffing or value betting you (in their perspective only, since in reality you have the best hand). The goal of slowplaying is to extract maximum value from a strong hand by misleading opponents into thinking they have a chance to win the pot. By playing their hand passively, a player can create the illusion of a weaker hand, and entice their opponents to make larger bets, which can then be raised on later betting rounds.

Important note: strong hands in poker make considerably more money when played aggressively! The goal when having a strong hand is to inflate the pot as much as you can for maximum profit. So, slowplay should not be used too frequently. However there are a few situations where it is useful to slowplay strong hands:

• When your opponent is hyper aggressive, and you know they will try to bluff you if you show any type of weakness;
• When your strong hand is blocking your opponent of having a decent hand and the board is dry (meaning there’s not much combinations of decent/strong hands). In these cases it is both safe and useful to slowplay since you let your opponent catch something on later streets, to then try to extract value from it.
• When you want to change it up your game and make a different play. From time to time, it’s always good to change your playing style so you keep your opponents guessing on how you are playing and what hands you could have.