[Nate tha' Great]

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If you have 88 in the SB, how do you proceed? Check-Call down? Check fold somewhere? If SB has 88, I believe if he's commited to showing down checkraising the flop is his best play. For an extra SB he gives Paluka the chance to fold a hand like TT as you say you would in this decent sized pot. He still reserves the right to fold to a turn raise or check fold the river. IMO, the most profitable way to play AK for SB would be to bet out at the Ace high flop. A weak Ace, KK or QQ should just call down. This checkraise smells like a medium pair to me most of the time, maybe a flopped set.

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Well, it depends a ton (as you suggest in your follow-up post) on my perception of his capping standards, as well as whether how much he tends to push on the big streets. If I assume that he's capping preflop with say AK-AJ, KQ, KJs, ATs, AA-77, then my equity on the flop is about 26%. I'd be getting 2.5:7 if he always bet every street and I always called, which means I'd show a *small* profit from calling (about 0.06 BB), which makes check-folding somewhat unattractive. If his capping range is any tighter than this, I can just check-fold the flop.

Of course, he won't always bet every street, as few opponents play like this at this limit. Against some opponents who tend to check behind a lot on the turn when a scare card hits, I'd peel a bet on the flop and fold if he bets the turn. Against others, I'd call a bet on the flop and probably call again on the turn if say a K or Q didn't come and then check-fold the river, hoping frequently for a free showdown (btw, this is only if I'm playing well/altertly as it takes a fair amount of confidence in order to execute a strategy like that). Against a true LAG, I probably just have to show down my hand unless the board starts to look really undesierable. But I still don't think I have sufficient folding equity against any of these opponents to make a check-raise profitable.

Now, if I'd 3-bet preflop with say T9s, then check-raising becomes more attractive, because my legitimate equity in the pot is quite a bit higher (around 40% against my theorized range of his capping hands), so I don't need as much folding equity to make the play worthwhile. Then I'm thinking about things like whether he's capable of playing back at me with worse hands.