Date: 10/01/1999
From: Jim Geary
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Subject: Re: New thoughts on Rounders
I also dont like the way Matt Damon slowplayed the straight at the end of the movie.Here is an interesting scenario... He checks the straight all the way down. TeddyKGB has flopped a set, let us say he has TT. The river card pairs the board, and Matt Damon is busted, shot and killed!!! What a way to go, rivered and killed! This just proves that slowplaying is dumb, especially slowplaying with your life on the line. If the board pairs and KGB flopped a set, it doesn't matter when the money goes in; it will go in. Therefor in this case, the only downside to slowplaying was that it might fail to get the money in on a draw that doesn't come, or a scare card may hit the river that will prevent the money from going in. To evaluate the utility of slowplaying, one must compare the chances of this happening vs. the odds of the hand developing in such a way that KGB will put the money in late when he wouldn't have early. The slimness of the latter set would indicate not slowplaying, not the reason you stated.
Last Modified 2/9/00