One of the most successful Casino Malaysia strategies (in the right situation) is to slow play pre-flop with a strong hand. The intention is to trap our rival, making him believe that we do not have a hand.
If we are on the button with a hand, say, as a pair of Js, or AK, we have two possible strategies: slow play or backraise (make a re-raise, after calling a bet). The decision we make will depend on the situation. We can use these poker strategies in the following cases:
When the players behind our position have stacks of at least 3 big blinds. They are more likely to continue betting.
When one of the blinds is a shortstack : if you have a medium hand, you will surely go all-in to protect your bet.
When our rival assumes that we have a medium hand, so it is likely that he will see our bets with hands like AQ or AJ. We must take into account that, in this case, if we have, for example, AK, it is best to backraise, since our opponent will hardly resign with AQ. if we have pocket Ks or pocket Aces, slowplay is better, as our opponent is likely to c-bet. Faced with an opponent who regularly c-bets , we can slow play with hands up to a pair of Qs. We can respond to the c-bet by simply seeing his bet, so he thinks we have a marginal hand, or we can raise his continuation bet.
If we have hands like pocket 10s, pocket Js or pocket Qs, backraising is an appropriate strategy , because those hands can get tricky post-flop, and we don’t want to get into a costly situation. For that not to happen, it is necessary that our opponent has a mediocre hand or low pairs.
Sometimes we will find ourselves facing opponents who do not call the continuation bets . In such cases, the best strategy is to limit c-bets to bluffs, and slow play pre-flop with our strong hands, as our opponent will fold most of the time. With hands like pairs of Js and AK, we’ll slowplay preflop and checkraise the flop to get value if we’re out of position. In position, we will raise post-flop. If an Ace or a K appears on the flop, we can checkraise the flop to catch those who have a worse hand than ours. If we have a big pair, the checkraise can be effective.
When we are facing aggressive players, who usually make 3 bets, we will slowplay pre-flop with big pairs. If they have a tendency to call opponents betting, we can 4-bet hands up to pair of 10s, as long as we are in middle or late position. In another position, we will narrow the range of hands.
To clarify the idea of how to play these high hands a bit, it is best to play them as if they were medium pairs, checking-calling if we assume that our opponent is going to make a new raise, or raising pre-flop if he has put in a lower hand range.
