The Trap

The trap can be an effective weapon and is best used against overly aggressive players. With that said slow playing a strong hand from the flop or trapping I use only under curtain circumstances. 1. If I have absolute nuts; unbeatable hand 2.There are aggressive players and expect them to bet. I don't use it when I think I have the best hand at the moment (hit trips on the flop for example) and expect that a player might be on a draw; then I just bet. In the following hand the circumstances for setting a trap played out perfectly. The table history namely the player on my right [A great position for me to be]; Susan with a big stack was betting on every flop. I heavily suspected on the third time around that it had less to do with her holdings and more just attempts to steal pots. This was confirmed when one of the other players decided to "look her up". After the show down both players had hit the second highest card on the flop and split the pot with the same pocket cards. Time to trap ... a couple of hands later a perfect flop I hit nuts flush with Ac, 5c.

Once again she bets on the flop. I smooth call rather than re-raise as there are other players behind me and I don't want to scare any of them off the hand with bets or scare her off on the coming 4th & fifth streets. In short give her room to continue to bet on the coming cards. Also I don't really expect my hand to be beaten the only possible scare is the table pairing with a possible full house. The turn produces a 4h no scare card for me still smooth calling bets and with the river comes the Kh. Perfect now a player holding J,Q hits a straight. On the river she bets again during the playing out of the cards I was also thinking if all was safe how big of a bet would she call. This is a tuff question to answer and only previous history of play and current stack size would give a general idea. Answer: She had doubled up in previous winning hands and with her moderate aggression ["so had chips to burn"]. I decided on a bet an amount that would still leave her with a plus amount from when she bought onto the table and would be about right to get a call. If she hit the straight I might even get a re-raise then I would just go all in. I bet on the river and she called. As it turned out her moderate bets had been on a double draw a flush and straight. And after the river had only a pair of King's and my bet she should have folded. But an important point to my play ... she had no clue to the strength of my hand!

Final note: If she had the queen or 7 of clubs to go with her J of clubs I'd been toast. PE