Irrational fear of the free card or solid LL play?

[Abagadro]

This is more of a general question instead of hand-specific. Been playing in many B&M loose-passive games with a good percentage of bad players. They will play lots of bad starters, chase and have flashes of wildly overplaying hands when they catch a bit of the flop or even outright bad bluffing.

My question is about using check-raises and checking through when you have a good hand to create later-street action in these types of games. I'm not talking about the family pot hands where you really need to worry about giving cards. More about the closer judgments when you have maybe 1-3 other players in the hand.

I've been doing pretty well basically just ramming and jamming when I have good stuff but I think I'm missing bets or two on occaision.

Example (this is a 5-10 game):

Get KK in EP. Raise and get two callers at cutoff -1 & button. Flop comes down 9 10 K rainbow. I'm tempted to check-raise here but don't want to give a freebie to the straight draw so I bet. Call call. Turn comes a J. Hmmm, not what a wanted. I'll see if a Q is out there and bet. Call Call. Turn is another lovely J. I bet it hoping the straight will wake up or a lower FH will have gotten there and I can 3-bet. Instead: Call Call. First guy shows Q3o and the other guy has A2o (?!). A nice pot and a nice table obviously, but could I have generated more bets out of it?

For comparison, about 5 hands later get KK again in the BB this time. Raise it up and the same 2 guys call. Flop comes down 4 7 9, two clubs. I bet it so I don't give a freebie. Fold Fold.

Do you think LL games like this are vulnerable to check-raising and checking through to generate later value bets or is ramming and jamminmg the way to go?

Interested in your thoughts. Thanks.

[ElSapo]

Looks solid to me. Yeah, you don't want to give a free card if someone is drawing, but as well, there's no real reason to believe your opponents will bet either situation. I'm much more prone to CR when there was a LP raiser pre-flop. Besides, raising pre-flop and then checking either of those flops is going to look suspicious, like you want to CR, I think. Just be out. Sometimes they'll call and sometimes they wont, but either way you're making a solid play.

[GrinningBuddha]

You'd be surprise how often betting out is the best play in low limit hold'em. At these levels, your opponents will make many mistakes, and calling when they should not is one of them.

The advice is player dependent, of course, but the typical low limit player will call a whole lot more than he'll bet.

[Louie Landale]

Looks like you did quite well on both hands.

Yes, firing-away (Tally-Ho) mindlessly will lose you a bet or two occasionally. But checking-away (hehehe) mindlessly will lose you a bet or two OFTEN.

Slow-playing in early position is only MARGINAL if the opponents are quite aggressive. Its a DISASTER against typical weak-loose opponents who GOING to call the flop and are probably NOT going to call or bet the turn. Slow-playing in late position is a LOT less dangerous since you can always bet the turn if they check.

"Tricky" is an occasional thing.

- Louie