Sometimes I’m hearing forum members and students ask about check raising turns. I have fielded this question many times and so I felt comfortable writing out my general thoughts on this matter, Enjoy.
So you’ve c-bet the flop OOP and now the turn is here and you don’t know what to do. Do you check-call? Check-raise? Check-fold? Or bet? As is the case on the flop, on the turn you want to be either check-calling or betting 95% of the time that you aren’t folding (check-calling bluff-catchers, barreling value hands and semi-bluffs). This is simply because by doing so you bring better balance to your overall game. If we bet turns we can make sure that our big value hands get paid off more, and then we can balance this by also bluffing. If instead we begin to check a lot of turns or flops OOP to our opponents it proves difficult for our overall game to profit and balance as well. Caveat: Some great players may use the check raise in their game more often than I do, that’s fine, but Imo this makes playing well much more difficult and really isn’t necessary at small or micro stakes.
When we check with initiative, we run the risk of letting the flop or turn check through. This is too detrimental to the balance of our game plan of getting plenty of value bets and bluffs in. There are of course exceptions to this, but I can say that spots that a turn or flop check raise is the best play are rare, and in 90% of those spots, a bet still is a pretty good option, so just bet!
Also as far as check raise bluffing is concerned……..A good general rule in hold em is that you don’t want to habitually create huge pots OOP with weak hands. That’s something that your opponents will generally be able to adjust to and profit from very easily from the vantage point of playing IP, so we want to avoid it at all cost.
Essentially, it's once again is a range-balancing issue stemming from how you can optimally play your strong hands. When we are the OOP PFR and have strong hands (e.g., TPTK or better) on almost any board, we should bet the turn because villain has many bluff-catcher hands with which he called the flop. If we don’t bet, villain will try to use these usable SD value hands and check back the turn if we check to them. So we need to be value-betting the turn to avoid letting that happen. By the same token, when we check, our range is face up for not having many strong hands and that creates a large informational advantage for villain on turn AND river.
The turn check-raise is something that you can pull from time to time, however it’s usually only good vs. very bad unbalanced players in very specific situations. This rarely happens and isn’t worth going much more into detail about, so just bet the turn from now on and you’ll be fine. The few spots when a check-raise might be a better play are so infrequent that it won’t matter much for your overall game.
The math behind the turn semi-bluff is quite compelling. For instance, let’s say you have a draw (four-outer or better). Also assume that villain will either fold or call, and not raise the turn often, or at all. Given those two conditions, barreling is very profitable for you in a ton of spots. Let’s look at some quick calculations to exemplify what I’m talking about.
DISCLAIMER: We need to determine the EV of a turn bet with a gut shot. There are several different outcomes we have to account for and combine to find our EV. To simplify things a tad we will make some assumptions.
Assumptions for Example: 1. We have just c - bet flop with gut shot and now are considering a turn barrel.
2. Pot $10
3. Turn Bet size $8
4. Villain will call our bet 50% of the time ($24 bet) when we hit river, the other 50% he folds.
Villain only needs to fold turn 29% to break even on a turn barrel!
With a simple four-out draw we roughly only need villain to fold to our bet 29% of the time for it to be profitable vs. a passive player. Tougher players and maniacs will do things like raise the turn more often, which has a negative effect on semi-bluffing and lowers the profitably of turn barrels to less favorable percentages.
This is just one reason why table selection and seeking out passive players is a good practice. Passive players allow us see our equity through more often, while good players and aggressive ones shut us out of our equity which can hurt us in situations like these.
Ask any questions you like in the thread, Good Luck At The Tables!
i disagree with the comments on check raising a low % of flops and turns with the intention of making your range easier to balance. A strategy of exploiting an opponent will show a greater profit than balancing our ranges, as long as we are able to realise when we are being exploited ourselves. Also it is still possible to balance your ranges when you check raise a greater percentage of the time by balancing your bluffs with thinner value bets. Say you have KK on the co, you raise and a breakeven tag reg calls the btn, the blinds fold and you see a flop Ts9s3c. We could c-bet and likely bet most turns and rivers, which would be ok, however you could argue that check raising the flop is better. Villain is more than likely to be betting his Tx, straight draw and flush draw combos, and will occasionally bet a hand he probably shouldn't such as small pocket pairs and we also give him the chance to bet his air. When we raise we rep more draws than made hands and the times he calls with his stronger Tx hands we can build a much bigger pot and get his stack by the river instead of our 3 streets of value. There are just a lot of spots imo where villains have a higher betting frequency than their continuing % vs your c-bets
edit: also if you don't have much of a check raising range its pretty easy for any decent reg to just call ip and barrel you when you check to him since your range pretty much consists of hands that are either check folding or bluff catching that can't call 3 streets, so your range in this spot is unbalanced anyway.
Last edited by chessterfish; 09-02-2011 at 05:40 AM.
Reason: .
i disagree with the comments on check raising a low % of flops and turns with the intention of making your range easier to balance. A strategy of exploiting an opponent will show a greater profit than balancing our ranges, as long as we are able to realise when we are being exploited ourselves. Also it is still possible to balance your ranges when you check raise a greater percentage of the time by balancing your bluffs with thinner value bets. Say you have KK on the co, you raise and a breakeven tag reg calls the btn, the blinds fold and you see a flop Ts9s3c. We could c-bet and likely bet most turns and rivers, which would be ok, however you could argue that check raising the flop is better. Villain is more than likely to be betting his Tx, straight draw and flush draw combos, and will occasionally bet a hand he probably shouldn't such as small pocket pairs and we also give him the chance to bet his air. When we raise we rep more draws than made hands and the times he calls with his stronger Tx hands we can build a much bigger pot and get his stack by the river instead of our 3 streets of value. There are just a lot of spots imo where villains have a higher betting frequency than their continuing % vs your c-bets
edit: also if you don't have much of a check raising range its pretty easy for any decent reg to just call ip and barrel you when you check to him since your range pretty much consists of hands that are either check folding or bluff catching that can't call 3 streets, so your range in this spot is unbalanced anyway.
Good post, as I mentioned earlier some players can cr more and still win at a good clip and that there are a few situations in which CR could be the best play. The situation you outline is one of the situations in which I think a CR could be good, in fact I just had a convo with a friend about a board just like that and came to the same conclusion you did( except he C/Rd a blank turn instead). For 90%+ of situations however C/R ing is not a very good idea, that was the central idea of this post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chessterfish
edit: also if you don't have much of a check raising range its pretty easy for any decent reg to just call ip and barrel you when you check to him since your range pretty much consists of hands that are either check folding or bluff catching that can't call 3 streets, so your range in this spot is unbalanced anyway.
We will just have to disagree on this point, I don't see any reason at all why we have to check and raise to balance our checking range.
Interesting read, especially since i have been thinking a bit about this recently. You didn't mention this play as a way to exploit, punish floaters. That way you extract value from their air/bluffs which should compensate for the times the turn goes c/c. The tricky bit imo is that we are mostly overreping our hand.
Interesting read, especially since i have been thinking a bit about this recently. You didn't mention this play as a way to exploit, punish floaters. That way you extract value from their air/bluffs which should compensate for the times the turn goes c/c. The tricky bit imo is that we are mostly overreping our hand.
Ya I see what you are saying. All the same we can just punish floaters by betting the turn instead of check raising it imo, they still dont get to take the pot away like they had intended. You make a good point though, as I see it in order to pull off a turn check raise you have to know alot about:
a. what your opponents range
b. What he is going to bet when chk to
c. Your perceived range when you check and when you raise.
This if course is super difficult to do while oop, thats why I often choose a bet
i disagree with the comments on check raising a low % of flops and turns with the intention of making your range easier to balance. A strategy of exploiting an opponent will show a greater profit than balancing our ranges, as long as we are able to realise when we are being exploited ourselves. Also it is still possible to balance your ranges when you check raise a greater percentage of the time by balancing your bluffs with thinner value bets. Say you have KK on the co, you raise and a breakeven tag reg calls the btn, the blinds fold and you see a flop Ts9s3c. We could c-bet and likely bet most turns and rivers, which would be ok, however you could argue that check raising the flop is better. Villain is more than likely to be betting his Tx, straight draw and flush draw combos, and will occasionally bet a hand he probably shouldn't such as small pocket pairs and we also give him the chance to bet his air. When we raise we rep more draws than made hands and the times he calls with his stronger Tx hands we can build a much bigger pot and get his stack by the river instead of our 3 streets of value. There are just a lot of spots imo where villains have a higher betting frequency than their continuing % vs your c-bets
edit: also if you don't have much of a check raising range its pretty easy for any decent reg to just call ip and barrel you when you check to him since your range pretty much consists of hands that are either check folding or bluff catching that can't call 3 streets, so your range in this spot is unbalanced anyway.
so you are basically saying "check-raising turns, don't do it"?
you coulda saved yourself some writing time
wow
what about flops?
do you want us to post a whole pile of hands where check-raising flop and/or turn as a bluff or for value was obviously the max-EV line
?
re floaters, you bet the turn they fold and you make $0 extra. You check-raise the turn, they fold, you make $xx >0 extra
re the maths example - note that when we hit they hit their flush draw 1/4 of the time. i.e. they are drawing too = they aren't calling as often when we hit (and losing) as it may appear. Plus it's a paired board and we're drawing dead sometimes. Etc.
edit - i thought you were relating it to one of the posted hands. Now i'm just confused about those hands in the post.
Last edited by enigmatic1x; 09-15-2011 at 06:37 AM.
If you see your opponent folding everything worse to your 1st/2nd/3rd barrel, then why not check and let him bluff to get at least SOME value. I believe that's the general idea of check raising. Or am I wrong? A reply would be appreciated.
Oldschool, an you please retype the equation but put labels throughout it?
I'm sure I'll grasp it if it's labeled and I would like to...
Very good COTW, I'm glad I read it.
0 = 10x + (.90)(1-x)(-8)The time you dont hit your draw + (0.10)(0.50)(1-x)(8+10) The times you hit and villian folds+ (0.10)(0.50)(1-x)(8+10+24)The times you hit and villain calls a river bet
If you see your opponent folding everything worse to your 1st/2nd/3rd barrel, then why not check and let him bluff to get at least SOME value. I believe that's the general idea of check raising. Or am I wrong? A reply would be appreciated.
The whole point of this post, as I intended it to be, was for a VERY SPECIFIC type of situation. The situation, when we have a DRAW on the turn after c betting. That necessarily means that the board wont be very dry. On drier boards, with value hands, YES! it's ok to check and then raise. However, that was not intended to be in the scope of this OP.
0 = 10x + (.90)(1-x)(-8)The time you dont hit your draw + (0.10)(0.50)(1-x)(8+10) The times you hit and villian folds+ (0.10)(0.50)(1-x)(8+10+24)The times you hit and villain calls a river bet
Two Plus Two
COTW: Turn Check Raise Or Barrel?
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