Quote:
Originally Posted by bobman0330
Check-raising the flop to "define his range" is ridiculous. What are we going to do with that information apart from pray that we hit on the turn? Him calling the check-raise doesn't tell us if he has a hand we can push off with another bet, so it's useless information. The flop check-raise is a straight bluff, and we do not have enough info about his range and our line does not show enough strength to make us think it is profitable.
I agree that check-calling is not a very happy line to take, but it's better than spewing a bunch of chips for no clear reason, and it's better than check-folding if we get a price. Playing a weak hand out of position with a capped range against an unpredictable opponent just sucks, which is exactly why limping preflop is so bad.
EDIT: Also, hoping that a check-raise magically brings 99 or 66 back into your range is just wishful thinking. You never have a set here. It's possible he's too clueless to notice that, but even fish can think back one street.
1) A flop Ch/r is not a straight bluff, it's a semi bluff.
2) He fold to a ch/r more than 50% of the time imo, since he's more than 50% to not hit a pair on the flop. Therefore, ch/r allows us to win the hand immediately with T high, as opposed to ch/c the whole way and never being able to bluff him off his A-high, K-high, or medium pockets that beat us.
3) If he calls our ch/r it narrows his range to hands that are stronger than air, but not nutted. Reason being if he has air he's folding if he is nutted (sets, or top two) he will most likely try and gii on the flop. So he's most likely calling with overpairs, Queens, maybe AT and probably most of his straight draws.
When we ch/c he can literally have anything and we have no clue whether it's closer to bluffs, or nuts.
4) If we end up hitting our straight on the turn we have built a bloated pot with a nutted hand + disguised our straight = maximum value. When we ch/c and hit our straight on the turn, do we check and hope he bets so we can ch/r? maybe he'll check back. Maybe we should lead out? But that looks so much like we were fishing for the straight and he'll just fold.
5) If we miss our straight we can continue bluffing on good turn cards that don't help his range
6) I don't know why there are never sets in our range. 66 is def a hand we can have here, Q9, or 96, depending on how liberal our starting requirements are. Mostly though, we are playing against the weakness in his range not our own.
7) If one is not comfortable playing post flop with these kinds of hands, I agree you should just fold them preflop. But if you are going to play these hands you need to be very good at playing post flop.