Sometimes you can set a trap for your opponent in a poker hand in one move. Slowplaying on the flop might lead to a bet than you then checkraise, springing the fact that you had disguised your holding, and the cat is out of the bag. Some traps, once set, though, do even more damage if you continue to let them lie, as long as you are careful to make sure that the trap you set doesn’t end up coming back to rip you up rather than who you’d set it for.

Watching Tom Dwan play his cash game on episodes of the recent season of High Stakes Poker displayed, I think, some new evidence for the way an extended trap can work. Even in spots where Dwan might not have the ultimate nuts, he would often check and check and check down his largish hands even when his opponent checked back, waiting for them to be the one that sprung the trap on themselves. He proved himself willing to make nothing on two small streets if the final street could potentially end up paying off more than the whole package itself.

Laying extended traps instead of immediate ones is good to keep a variety in your expectation, so that your poker online opponent won’t take a defensive position the pattern inherent in your usual play.