Why I Think Check-Raising is Usually a Bad Play, and When I Think It's a Good Play

I'd like to second Fuel's appreciation of the way BrackChips played his four rovery radies (btw, if you want to pray with four radies yourself, save up about $1 and terr Tiffany's mom to come over with three of her friends). A lot of players would try to check-raise the flop with this hand, or even with hands like 88-JJ or a diamond draw, with the intention of betting out AK or JJ. I think this is a really over-used play in No-Limit Hold 'Em.

In Limit, you often have to use the check-raise liberally. This is because you are only allowed bet a fixed amount, so if you want to get more money in on a particular street, somebody is going to have to bet so you can raise. This is particularly valuable in multi-way pots where you can force players between you and the bettor you're raising to call two bets. An example would be if you have AK UTG in a four-way pot, the board comes KT5 with two hearts. If you know the button is an aggressive player who will bet when checked to, you can check and raise him, forcing the players in the middle who may have flush or straight draws to call two bets cold, which really cuts down their pot odds. They may still call and draw out, of course, but at least you've made them pay to do it.

I'll argue later that I think the check-raised is best used in multi-way pots in No-Limit as well, but for now let's focus on the most common situation, heads-up action between a pre-flop raiser and an out of position caller. The standard play of the pre-flop raiser is to continuation bet virtually any flop. Knowing this, the out-of-position caller might raise that bet with a marginal hand such as a middle pair-ish type hand, or a naked flush or straight draw. When you do this, one of three things will happen:

1) Your opponent will fold. If your hand is marginal, that almost certainly means the hand he's folding is worse than yours, unless he's really tight (in which case he's not going to be raising and c-betting that often). So you won the hand, but your bet folded out a hand which is worse than yours. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you're out of position and playing the turn and river might be difficult if you just call. Also since your hand is marginal, your opponent probably has a few outs at least. Of the three things that can happen when you check-raise with a marginal hand, this is the best one.

2) Your opponent re-raises you. Well that's pretty scary. He raised before the flop, he bet when you checked on the flop, and now that you raised, he's still confident his hand is best. He could be bluffing. Maybe he's noticed you raising his c-bets a lot, and is now pushing AK. Possible. But even so, he probably has six outs. Or he could have you crushed. You don't want to get into the habit of getting all-in on the flop with middle pair or top pair weak kicker. So this is not a profitable situation for you.

3) Your opponent calls. This might be the worst of all. Now you're out of position on two more streets, you probably don't have the best hand, and even if you do, about half the deck is going to either improve his hand or allow him to bluff you. So say you check-raise the QQ7 board with 88 and get called. What are you going to do when the turn isn't an 8? The pot is already huge. Any reasonable bet commits you to the pot. You could try to make another attempt to bet out a bigger pair or a flush draw. But you're risking a lot to find out if he has an overpair, a Q, or a full house. So this is kind of a gross situation as well.

So of the three things that can happen, one is kind of marginally good. Another point I want to make about check-raising with a marginal hand: it's expensive. Say the cut-off raises to 4 bb and you call from the big blind. You check, he'll probably bet 7 bb or so. To make a decent check-raise, you'll have to put in 20 or so bb. That's 1/5 of a buy-in. Assuming it's never profitable for you when he re-raises or calls, you're going to have to make him fold at least 60% of the time for this to be a +EV play. In these spots, I favor a mix of leading, check-calling, and check-folding, depending on the opponent and board.

So what about check-raising with a monster? Well now you definitely don't want him to fold. So 1) from above is now the worst result. The advantage of check-raising as opposed to leading is that you get an extra bet from a hand like AK that will put in a c-bet but would not have called a lead (although many players would raise your lead there, which makes you more money). But monsters don't come around too often. When you hit them, you don't want to make a c-bet. You want to make a stack. A stack is so much bigger than a c-bet, when comparing the EV of plays in these spots, it's really going to come down to which play gives you the better chance of winning the other player's entire stack. If you check-raise and get called or re-raised, obviously that's great, since you get in more money on the flop, but when you're 100bb deep, three pottish bets in a pot that was raised preflop will get you there, too. But two probably won't. This brings me to my final indictment of the check-raise: Your ability to execute it depends on your opponent betting. If he checks behind, it's a disaster. If you're holding quad queens, you don't have to worry about being drawn out on too much. But not all monsters are so monstrous. Flushes and straights can be made to bust you. But even worse, you will not get full value from second-best hands. For instance, here's a hand I played recently vs. a tight player who was set-mining out of the big blind, and managed to win a total of $17 when he flopped a boat vs. an overpair. I kind of lucked out that a scary river card (for him) came, but regardless, there's no way he's stacking me on the river, unless I hit an A or a K to win.

$0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em
BB ($82) posts the big blind of $1
BRUECHIPS ($140) in CO
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BRUECHIPS [Ad Ac]
BRUECHIPS raises to $4
BB calls $3

*** FLOP *** [Ks Kd 9d]
BB checks
Hero checks - (I know this player is a pretty tight 12-tabler and likes to check-raise big hands. I doubt he'll call a bet here with TT-QQ or any of the other hands I beat, AK and 99 are definitely hands he would be calling out of the BB with. I probably would have bet here if I didn't have the A of diamonds, because me having it really reduces the odds of him having a flush draw. He'd have to have Q-high diamonds or lower, which isn't too likely. So I'm going to check here, both for pot control and to hope to disguise my hand enough that I can get value from QQ-TT on later streets.)

*** TURN *** [Ks Kd 9d] [2h]
BB checks
BRUECHIPS bets $7 - (Safe turn card and he checks again, time to execute my plan of getting value from a smaller pp.)
BB raises to $17 - (Definitely not what I was hoping for against a player with a sub-1 AF. But I just can't fold AA to one bet here after checking the flop. I'm hoping to check down the river.)
BRUECHIPS calls $10

*** RIVER *** [Ks Kd 9d 2h] [2d] - (Not a great card, as the flush comes through, but not a bad card either, as it gets him to check down a better hand.)
BB checks
BRUECHIPS checks

*** SHOW DOWN ***
BB shows [9c 9h] a full house, Nines full of Kings
BRUECHIPS mucks
BB wins the pot ($40.40) with a full house, Nines full of Kings

Way to flop a full house and win a whopping $17, buddy! I guess he's scared of the river card because it gives AK a full house, but I think he's gotta bet 1/2 pot or so and hope to get value from a flush or AA. Maybe some players even pay off with QQ. If I had AK, I'd raise and he could pretty safely fold. But even if he does bet $20 and I call, still didn't get max value, and it really all came from the fact that the flop went check-check.

Even though this post is already really long, I'm going to make it longer by giving a situation where I would check-raise. When you're out of position in a multi-way pot with a big draw, I like the check raise, particularly when the original raiser is in early position. This is because the OR will likely c-bet, and players in middle positions might call, leaving more dead money in the pot when you try to race with your draw vs. an overpair. Here's an example, although in this case it didn't work as well as I had hoped because none of the players in middle position called:

$0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em
*** STACKS ***
UTG ($100)
MP1 ($119)
MP2($150)
BRUECHIPS ($100)
BRUECHIPS posts the big blind of $1

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BRUECHIPS [Jh Ah]
UTG raises to $3.50
MP1 calls $3.50
MP2 calls $3.50
BRUECHIPS calls $2.50 - (If there aren't calls from MP players, I'm folding this hand to an UTG raiser. I might even fold it here if it weren't suited. But getting more than 6-to-1 and every player in the hand full stacked, I'm going to give it a call and hope I can hit a flop hard.)

*** FLOP *** [6h Td Qh] - (I'd like to go ahead and get money in on the flop here. I'm out of position, so it's going to be hard for me to extract value if I hit my hand. Some of my outs are not clean, like a Th or an A, and the flush outs are really obvious, again making it hard for me to get value. The only card that really gives me a great chance of stacking somebody is a K. But on the other hand, getting a free card is definitely not a disaster. I'm pretty sure an UTG raiser is going to be firing at this board. Hopefully one of the MP guys will call and I can trap them in the middle. If I bet, I either fold everybody out, which is not terrible, or I get raised by the UTG guy and have to race JUST with him, without any additional dead money in the pot.)
BRUECHIPS checks
UTG bets $11 - (as planned)
MP1 folds
MP2 folds - (bummer)
BRUECHIPS raises to $40 - (I'm pretty sure he's not folding, although he could fold AK, JJ, or even AQ. I think a shove seems more like a draw and might be more likely to get a call from JJ and AQ, which I'd rather fold out. Obviously, if he just flat calls, I'm gonna have to shove any turn.)
UTG raises to $96.50, and is all in
BRUECHIPS calls $56.50, and is all in
UTG shows [Kd Ks] - (No problem with this result. I have 14 outs - two kings, three aces, nine hearts - for 48% equity. But I think I played this hand exactly right. Too bad I couldn't squeeze any of the MP guys with QJ or something like that, but them's the breaks. As for how UTG played the hand, I think it's not that bad to stack off with KK here, but he shouldn't expect to be a big favorite. My range here is pretty much AK,AT,JT,KJ,KT,J9,T9,98,87 of hearts, QTs, TT, and 66. His equity against that range is 33%. If I add AQ into my range, his equity jumps way up to 53% (remember, there are 16 AQ hands, only one KT of hearts), but it's pretty rare I'd show up with AQ here. MAYBE AQ of diamonds. But for the reasons listed above, I'd hate to try and check-raise AQ here. Anyway, since the skill part of the hand is over, no sense in showing you guys the turn and river...but let's just say that hearts do get there SOMETIMES, although I would prefer backdoor spades....)

BRUECHIPS