I had just composed a most thoughful discourse on the subject of check raising flops at the lower limits.

It was articulate, it was elegant, it was thoroughly witty, it was refrained yet enthralling, hell it was a bloody smashing read even if I do say so myself.

Then my compuiter crashed...

Now...now I'm grumpy and fed up. Now I've just polished off a substantially large plate of Pad Thai, and while completely satisfactory in taste it has left me with a most serious case of the itis. So I'm going to skip the formalities and get straight to the punch:


I play $3.50 Turbos.

People frequently open on the button and then cbet a lot. I don't think 80% for both would be unsual, maybe higher from some opponents. That means they're betting 64% or more of all hands they are ever dealt once they get to the flop!!!

Considering this it seems that maybe I should stop being such an empty ball bag and check raise the odd flop, hell maybe I should check raise every flop (I don't mean that literally btw).

Looking back I very very rarely do this. I put it down to the following 3 concerns.

a) I don't have faith in peoples ability to fold.

b) I don't know what do if I'm called and that scares me (a real man can admit when he is afraid).

c) I never really know what boards someone has hit when they open 80% of hands.

I would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on employing the "check raise bluff" at low limits.

Should I be doing it more often? Should I be doing it a lot? What type of opponent should I be doing it against? What type of boards should I be doing it on?

These are the questions that plague my existence and keep me up at night.

Should you have any experience in this area please, I beg you, render it onto me and make the voices go away. Should you know of any relevant threads or hand histories please cast light upon their being so that I can find that which I seek.

Any advice will be most gratefully received. Please help. Poker is hard, and the world is sad and lonely.

Raise boards that are dry like 7c 4d 2s or 7c 2s 2h.
Doing it on 2c 2s 2h isn't the best idea, they don't fold. They just don't care.
Most guys at 3,5$ will believe you. But from time to time you find a guy with 98o that will just never fold. If he doesn't then, you just raise for value.

You can also ch/call flop then check raise turn. I do that against people that are maniacs and always betpot betpot betpot 100% of the time.

Thanks for your input, I've been experimenting with c/raising dry boards. I've been going for dry boards with 1 paint card mostly. I feel like opponents are less likely to float my raises if they don't have overcards and also I guess my calling range hits TP more often on these boards but not sure if they are thinking on that level.

It seems to be going ok so far. I've been firing a lot on the turn too as I get the feeling opponents call light alot to c/raises but interpret my range as far stronger once I fire again on the turn. I worked out if I c/r 3x and always get called on the flop, villain needs to fold 48% of the time on turn for me to break even (think the maths is correct). Plus it probably annoys them a lot too! Have been getting a lot of folds to this play so far but obviously early days.

There are two things I was thinking about that I would like to get peoples thoughts on if possible though:

1) If I am barrelling the turn are there specific types of cards that are good or bad to fire at this level

2) When I start playing more capable opponents, will I still want to be c/raing dry flops? I'm presuming at the moment that the reason we make a play on dry flops is because there is less chance our opponent hit, it deosn;'t really feel like we will have a hand we would actually raise for value often on these flops....