Poker Psychology: Don't Always Fold so Easily

Poker Psychology: When you are going to fold, you can sometimes deter future pushes by delaying for a while before folding. This usually comes into play on the bubble or later.

For example, it's 4-handed and everyone has fairly equal stacks of around 8BBs. You are in the BB and the SB shoves on you and you fold. On the next orbit, he does it again. You have 72o. You shouldn't encourage him to keep doing this by quickly and meekly folding. Doing so is simply going to reinforce the behavior.

Yeah, you will fold. But first make him sweat a little. Give him a few seconds to contemplate what would happen if he gets called and beaten. There's nothing worse than finishing in 4th place in a Sit-N-Go. Make him suspect you are getting fed up with his pushes and that every time he does it, your calling range gets a little wider (even if it's not true).

You are not actually fed-up that he's pushing on you. He's just playing the game. And so are you. You are simply reversing a tell to induce him to fold to you later.

You should only do the slow-fold occasionally. You don't want to slow down the game unnecessarily. And don't bother with it 9-handed. It's most effective on the bubble when there's a rhythm to the action. A whole orbit sometimes takes only a few seconds at this stage of the SNG.

Also, don't take this too far by threatening to call him next time in the chat box. This crosses the line on etiquette. Even the slow-fold is borderline, and I would not be recommending it here except that it's so effective.

One thing that makes it effective is that almost all players who slow-fold are not doing it to reverse a tell. In most cases, it's a true tell that they are looking for a chance to bust you. That's why it's helpful to stereotype your opponents as regulars or recreational players.

Recreational players are much less likely to be playing poker psychology tricks on you.

So slow-folding can be good. Slow-calling on the other hand is not something you want to be doing. Rememeber you want to be snap-calling not slow-calling. Slow-calling can make it seem like you're looking for a reason to fold.

Fold silently and call violently.

And there's one form of slow-calling you definitely want to avoid:

Super Turbo Tip: Never Slow-Roll - It will cost you money.

return from "poker psychology" to "make them think you call a lot"