Checking behind instead of making a continuation bet (theory)

[xorbie]

When you completely miss. I think this is clearly bad to do 100% of the time. Especially if you are like me and have 10-15% PFR or something in LP and can't afford to not pick up or play aggressively.

However, I think always making a contination bet is very -EV from a table image POV, for two reasons:

(1) When you check behind after you miss, this just makes it more likely that when you bet out, you actually have something. For example, if I raise on the button with KJs and then check behind on a Q47 flop down to the river, next time I bet, people are more likely to believe I have top pair.

(2) This lets you slowplay good hands from time to time. Say you've been LAGing it up. You get AA in CO and raise. Get a couple callers, flop is a beautiful A93r. Checked to you, you check behind. Now you get some action from 98. Yay. This is even better if you happen to check in EP after hitting a nice flop because people are more likely to believe you have nothing.

Now I'm still tinkering with it, but I'm thinking that checking down all the way with just a high card about 30%-50% of the time is good.

Agreed? Disagree?

[NYCNative]

I agree that raise-check is weak. But I also think that always shooting out a bet after a raised flop hits will get a savy opponent to smell something funny and play off of that and reraise you to test you out.

A lot depends on the texture of the flop. If it looks like it might have hit me (An Ace even though I don't have one), I'll take a pot-sized stab. If it looks like it didn't hit me (all low-ball cards) maybe I check it and bet after the turn, especially if paint hits (whether it's paint I have or not).

[wtfsvi]

I've been thinking about this too. My pf-raise from LP is even higher, and I must check it through from time to time in order to keep people from bluff-check-raising me. I probably wouldn't check the Q-high flop too often though. It's the 237-flops I check behind most of the time, since villains can have overpairs and since it doesn't look like they hit me. Then I can bet the turn if oponent still reads to be weak, specially if an A-Q comes.

I'll occasionally check the Q-high too of course. Think 30-50% sounds excessive though.

[KowCiller]

I agree but it's much more effective live than online, imo.

KoW

[Ghazban]

"Always" doing anything in no-limit is a bad idea. You should definitely check behind some percentage of the time when you've raised preflop (probably 5-10% of the time) but picking the spots to do it is important. Headsup against a weak-tight opponent, checking behind when you don't have anything is poor but checking behind when you've got a good-but-not-great hand is better. Against a calling station, there's no reason to check behind when you've got something (because he'll call a bet) but betting with nothing is clearly not going to get him to fold.

Checking behind with a missed AK against multiple callers on a ragged board is often a good play. Unfortunately, if you pair on the turn, you can lose a lot more to a flopped set than if you'd bet out and gotten check/raised on the flop (as you'd obviously fold).

Anyway, my point is that checking behind from time to time is definitely better than always making a continuation bet but identifying situations where checking behind is better than betting out is, in my opinion, preferable to using a game-theory-like randomization method (not that you've advocated one).