[The Deuce]

To the guy who asked if I do this all the time, no. I do it very occasionally in situations where I can confidently put my opponent on a certain range of hands, particularly hands like high PPs which are hard for a lot of people to get away from. I'm risking five bucks to get his whole stack.

The main problem with check calling the flop and leading the turn is that I risk a whole bunch of scare-cards coming that will stop this guy from putting his money in. The check-raise is scary sure. He could interpret it as strength or me trying to milk him, but it can also look a lot like I'm trying to define his hand without investing too much. Reason being that leading out, he can raise me with a much larger range of hands than he can re-raise me with after the check-raise. Plays like this aren't completely unheard of. If it gets to the river, and he doesn't improve, I think I'll have a very hard time getting paid off.

And I've check-raised the flop with less than two pair plenty of times, but then I seem to check-raise more than is good for me. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]