Slow play
also called trapping
To slow play is to check or call with a strong hand instead of betting it, hoping the opponent keeps betting or catches up enough to pay you off.
It works when a bet would fold out everything you beat, and when the board is dry enough that a free card is unlikely to hurt. Those two conditions are narrower than they look.
The usual cost is not a lost pot but a small one. Checking a strong hand on a board where the opponent has nothing tends to win the same pot you would have won anyway, while giving away the chance to build one.
an example
your cards
board
You flopped three nines on a board where almost nothing else is possible. Betting is likely to end the hand. Checking gives an opponent room to make a pair on the turn, or to bluff at a flop that looks like it missed you.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find slow play in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
Check-raise
A check-raise is checking when the action reaches you, then raising after a player behind you bets in the same betting r ...
Value bet
A value bet is a bet made with a hand you expect to be best, sized so that a worse hand can still convince itself to cal ...
Set
A set is three of a kind made with a pocket pair in your hand and one matching card on the board.
next
Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
Forty hands against a bot, no account, and your own hand history at the end.