A while back SCOTTFRANCIS made a post on UPF about check raising.


I'd like to give an example of two hands illustrating this.

Both of these hands were against LAGs. both are on stars 100nl tables. in each i have over a full stack and have my opponent covered.

hand 1:
[Kc] utg. i raise to $4 and get called in three places behind me. blinds fold. blah.

4 way pot, $17.50

flop: [Ks][9h]. yahtzee.

I check. next to act bets $10. button calls. I raise to $65, enough to put them both all in. flop better calls and button folds. turn and river are blanks and i drag against his [Qh].

hand 2:

[Kc] in the SB. 3 limpers to me and i raise to $6. i get called by the button, an aboslutely awful player - the kind who i watched call off his $50 stack with Ax on an ace high flop. lucky him, he busted an overly aggressive KK. he now has a $100 stack.

$15ish or so in the pot. heads up.

[As][2c]. yum. very yum. i check. he bets $10. i pause for a few seconds before pushing all in - a $100+ raise into a $25 pot. i want mister. brave call to look at this as a steal. he does and calls pretty quickly with [Jc] . i'm not sure what to think but happily drag against him.

thoughts?

~Dustin

The problem I have with the play is that most everybody checks when they raise preflop and hit the flop that hard. I cant count the number of times Ive seen someone raise preflop and the flop is Kxx..they check when they have KK.
So I say bet the flop anyway against most people.
I do check raise sometimes against aggressive players if I hit my ace or king. If I hit both of them Id probably bet though. The main reason is that your not going to get action anyway unless they have part of the flop. If they have part of the flop your not going to win a big pot unless you start building the pot early so you can make a bigger bet later without having to overbet the pot.

The first play is a little scary, since your first to act, if you check and so does everyone else and the heart or a QJ10 hits on the turn you have no idea where you are at. The check raise works well at times but also can get you in trouble. Plus when you checkraise against K/Qh you really arent that big a favorite in this hand. I'm not saying that this is a bad play by any means but it is something to be carefull with.

The second hand, this bad player is going to put all him money in either way. Personally I would have just called and let him bet into you again on the turn. A really bad player isn't going to make that call because he thinks you are stealing, he is going to make that call because he is not a good enough player to throw away good cards when the flop is bad for him.

kenny - the reason i raised to $65 was to put my opponents all in. if i raise to $40 i have to put them all in on the turn anyways, and at that point he'll be getting lovely odds to keep calling. if possible, i'm always happier winning a small pot than a big one.

ice - on the second hand, i completely agree with you. that's why i pointed out int he post that these opponents were LAG's, and particuarly with the second opponent, the sort of guy who overvalued his holdings way too often. heads up, i normally bet here. in a big multi-way pot, i generaly go for the check raise, as it's easier to feign that i don't missed the flop when there's a lot of opponents. after watching him call off his stack with A6, and with how often he was betting in general, i figured that
A: there was a strong chance he'd bet here, especially since i had folded to all of his previous bets on the flop after i had raised preflop.
B: there was a strong chance he'd view my massive overbet as a bluff. if he had 22 or A2, then good for him. otherwise, while i'm not likely to be called very often, i figured against this particular opponent (once again, note the A6 hand i observed above) that i had a strong chance of being called. In general, i hate checking a strongly hit flop with a monster holding, but that's just because i hate slowplaying - i'm always happier taking down a small pot than losing a big one. still, in this case i felt confident enough that he would bet/call with a JJ type hand, or even an Ax type hand that i could take down a monster from him. i'll be posting a hand later today about that KK situation you just mentioned.

~Dustin