The Art of Check Raising

I remember playing in a cash game when I was a newbie in poker and I hit a monster hand in the hole that was made on the flop. AA in the hole and AJK on the flop. Im golden with the uber nuts in the hand and I check it into a field of 5 callers. Someone is going to bet with so many face cards on the flop. Someone did.

Subsequently the betting got around to me and I raised the bet. The original bettor was livid angry. I was informed by several players that check-raising was just "not in" and that I was being a jerk for doing so. Naturally I took down the hand but then I noticed the guy was still livid. After that incident I didnt check raise for a while but then I got to thinking.

That player got livid and was on tilt for sure. He spread around money all over the place but I got little of it because I was intimidated by his anger. These days that isnt the case.

When I sit down at a poker table, there are no friends and if I put someone on tilt, that just means more money for me. Check raising is a lovely way to do this because many people absolutely HATE it. In an environment such as online poker where your psychological tools are limited, this can be a valuable asset.

Consider a small tournament. Blinds are 10/20 and you are sitting on 3k of chips. Your M is 100 so you have some money to play with. You get some medium cards such as A8 under the gun. You check it around and the middle loose player (he plays some good hands well but often plays junk) is betting. You then raise him. If he raises you back, you fold. The cards come around again, you again check raise him. This time potentially stealing his bet. If you do this a few times you may likely tick him off extremely. He will start to say "I hate that guy." and be more likely to call you or raise recklessly.

Now you are a few hands later and get the monster KK hand. Check, Quasi bets, you raise hard, 4 times his bet. Quasi has 99 and is annoyed with you in the extreme and raises you back. Then you all-in. Now quasi has a good chance of calling you and paying you off. You have managed to tilt another player from halfway across the world.

This also works similarly by playing and showing junk hands. With an M (ratio of your stack to the money you put in blinds and antes in one round) of 60 to 100 you play some silly cards such as 56s or 48s in the flop. If you hit it and they fold out of the hand, Show your cads. Mr AJ and AQ are likely to be pissed off as all get out and tilt. Even if you dont rake the pot in, it can be beneficial to show that you had the garbage draw and missed. If you can call cheaply on the end, you can give them the impression you are a maniac. It only takes one or two of these to tilt someone. If you are able to check raise a garbage draw and then call and show it or better yet, win with it, then you are VERY likely to tilt your opponet immediately.

If you think about it and your career, there have probably been dozens of times that you have gotten annoyed at another player. At that point you might be willing to admit that this annoyance caused you to change your playstyle, possibly even to loosen up. This shows that the strategy works.

Once you have tilted a player, you will know it. They will call a lot more and agressively bet into you. That is the time to go conservative and spank them with a monster hand. By investing a bit of your stack in tilting your opponet you can win tournaments and clean up in cash games.

AA in the hole and AJK on the flop. Im golden with the uber nuts in the hand

POTD

Umm you basically repeated Mike Caro’s material... in some sort of tale of poker... I don't mean to sound like an ass but it looks like you took a page out of Mike Caro’s book of Poker Tells and typed it up putting a little bit of your own words in it...

As for check raising it's completely legal move... if you take C/R out of poker it's like taking the glove away from baseball... It's just not the same game...

The other thing I've noticed, is that a check raise will buy you free cards in later hands. I have calmed down many an aggressive player with a successful check raise.

They spend the rest of the evening wondering if you are up to something.

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The Art of Check Raising

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The Art of Check Raising