As a beginner playing in the micros and live 1/2, I never thought about check-raising with anything other than lots of equity. It didn't seem necessary. I avoided the better players. Weaker players would call with garbage and life was excellent.

Now I'm getting to a point where my skill is approaching some of the better players. They keep folding to my check-raises because I always show up with the goods. Life is still excellent by the way.

From what I've been reading, seems there is a big difference between raising and check-raising. When raising (let's assume heads-up), I'm doing it in position, and I can balance with all sorts of draws, weak and medium. But when check-raising, I'm out of position. Weak and medium draws suck because I'm not likely to hit and then I'm faced with the awkward situation of having to check and show weakness. I'll have to fold my significant but insufficient equity to a bet.

So what do I balance my check-raising range with? I'm thinking in particular about dry boards, although I'm just as lost in this situation on wet boards.

Any insights here would be appreciated.

Try picking hands that have some equity but that you can comfortably pitch if you get re-raised e.g. gutshot draws. Your read is that these players put you on monsters so you should have a lot of fold equity.

At the same time, stop check-raising some of your sets. Your call down range should have some monsters.

It's live. You'll probably get into a spot where you need to check raise maybe twice a week. Probably never against the same villains. **** balance.

This is true to an extent but it's smart to identify thinking regs who will fold because they know you only raise with the effective nuts and target them with more balanced play. Or we can just call it exploitative play if you prefer, it just ends up being more balanced than against the general population.

This is exactly my intent. Against the level 1 players and rec types I wouldn't check-raise bluff.

I don't check-raise with sets all the time. When I do, I'm usually targeting stationy or aggro players who don't like to fold or are likely to shove. Good regs will almost always fold.

I imagine check-raising would also be profitable against good, thinking regs if I threw in some bluffs and they knew I was capable of it.

What about check/raising with overcards or air versus these players? Or is that just donkey play?

In one of Mathew Janda's videos, he analyzes a CO open vs BTN flat situation with this flop: 8 4 3. He points out that if CO checks, BTN is likely betting with his entire range, which makes him vulnerable to a check-raise.

So I guess a check-raise is a great response to a villain who bets too wide and probably doesn't have much equity.

If you're in the BB, you should be check-raising a lot against a frequent c-bettor.
As a starting point, check-raise your best value hands (top 2pr+) and balance with your combo draws and a few crappy gutshots. (It's often good to call with the medium equity draws, like Axs/Kxs flush draws, but raise the weaker or stronger combos, since they have less showdown value and don't dominate anything).
If villain calls, barrel with the top of your range and the draws that have most outs (combo draws). It's OK to give up with the naked gutterballs on the turn. You'll sometimes get a free card anyway, as villains are scared of the double-check raise.
When you see how profitable it is to check-raise vs people that c-bet too often, you can start raising with all kinds of nonsense like bottom pair, underpairs etc, but you need to get comfortable doing it with strong and weak draws first.

Quick example. Suppose you flat in BB vs CO. Flop comes 9 8 3hh. Vs a c-bet, I'd generally call with stuff like A4hh, KJhh, but raise with JThh, 76hh, and maybe some combos of 76s/JTs that don't have the flush draw. If villain calls the xr, I'd often give up with the "wrong" JTs/76s, as villain clearly has something, so I want a bit more equity (a proper combo draw) to keep barreling.

Not sure if he would make that assumption again.

But yes, you obviously want to check/raise to exploit players who bet too wide and don't want to check/raise players who bet a too narrow range. But that's not only true for bluff raises but also for value raises.

Thanks, guys, for the valuable feedback. Now I have a starting point and a clear idea that check-raise bluffing can be a good way to exploit someone who c-bets too often (or just consistently bets too wide in general).