It always feels great to pull off a check-raise, doesn’t it? But for every check-raise you successfully pull off, there will be plenty of times when your opponent simply checks and ruins your plans of capitalizing on a big hand. The following scenario will illustrate how this scenario plays out sometimes.
Check-Raise gone Bad
Let’s say you’re in a game of $1/$2 Omaha and are holding Js-Ac-Ad-7h in the big blind. Three players limp in before the dealer decides to make a small $5 raise right before the action gets to you. With two aces, the small raise doesn’t scare you off, and you decide to call instead of folding pre-flop. Two of the three limpers also decide to call the raise.
The flop comes up 4d-Ah-8s. Now your fears of someone hitting a straight or a flush have been eased and you have the top hand with trips aces. Of course, with three other players the hand, you are thinking about getting as much money as possible out of them. So you decide to check, and the next two players check before the dealer throws out a $10 raise.
The turn comes up Ks, which puts both flush and straight draws on the board (however unlikely they may be at this point). Looking to bait the dealer into a check-raise situation, you merely check again. After the other two players check, the dealer only makes a $3 raise, and you go ahead with your re-raise of $10.
Your raise forces all three players to fold, including the dealer who were hoping would call. And this definitely raises the question as to whether or not you benefited at all from the check-raise. You only got an extra $3 out of the pot while forcing the other players to fold in a hand you obviously had control of. A better move may have been to bet at the outset of the turn to see if anybody would’ve called and gone to the river. While this might have been risky with draws on the board, it is unlikely that anyone would’ve called the flop raise with no flush or straight opportunities on the board.
Check raising can be a very useful tool if used for the right reasons. One thing I find that many inexperienced (hold’em), players do excessively is check calling. If your hand is good enough to call with, than it should have been bet in the first place. However if it’s noticed that you check fold a lot, players will try to steal the pot every time you check. I’ve found that well timed check raises will earn respect for your future checks. I will also check raise super aggressive players, excessive bluffers, and those who tend to over value hands. As an experiment, I once played for an entire day without allowing myself to check call even once. It was very helpful and I highly recommend the exercise, especially for those who check call out of habit.