Texas Hold'em and Sandbagging
There are a number of important skills to be used and applied to the game of poker. In fact, without some of these strategies poker would come down to a game of who had the best hand and who's luckier. Poker and its new favorite variant, Texas Hold'em, isn't about who's luckier - as one of the beloved games around, Texas Hold'em is all about guts, skill and discipline.
Victory comes through many avenues in Texas Hold'em. Deception or misinformation is one of the preferred methods. Bluffing in particular, is the most famous form of deception, popularized by movies around the world. Hollywood cannot be blamed for falling in love with the maneuver, as it allows for highly dramatic and intense moments in film and television. Nothing can be more amazing that winning a huge pot when all you've got is the high card on the community cards. However, the poker tips have often ignored a distant cousin to the bluff that can be just as effective, if a little dangerous. It is called the slow play.
Trapping or sandbagging are two names that this tactic is also known for. To fully understand deception in Texas Hold'em, a player must realize that the heart of Texas Hold'em and all poker lies in the betting. Your bet speaks for you the loudest, no matter how many times you insist that you don't like the current round. Both bluffing and slow play use this fact to the player's advantage. While bluffing loves to make their guns look bigger, sandbagging wants to do the exact opposite by making yourself look weak and vulnerable or at least, make it look like a drawing hand so other players try to bet you out.
This tactic is as dangerous as bluffing, if not more so, for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that when you trap someone, you prolong the fight. In a fistfight, this means that you'll get more and more tired and eventually make more mistakes that could cost you more than you bargained for. In Texas Hold'em, this means that your opponents can end up drawing into a monster hand that will blow you out of the water. This generally means that if you're going to try out the slow play, you had best be sure that your hand is one of the top three possible hands at that point in time.
A last note on this poker tip regards the use of the slow play. If the only reason that you're not going to slow play is because you think it's dangerous, just go ahead and do it. Bluffing holds inherent dangerous as well. If you can't do the safe thing, you should do the successful thing.