Dodging a check-raise?

[Stealthy]

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No, you really can't, because your brain tricks you. It inherently remembers those rare opportunities where the mathematically correct move would have resulted (or did result) in a less desirable result than what your intuition did (or would have). It conveniently forgets the times when the mathematically correct thing was correct, however, because these events are more common and less interesting. We make whellbarrow loads full of money from people who "feel their A coming" and hit it because of how often they don't hit it in spite of their feeling, and then forget how often that happens.

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Thanks Wookie you post hit all the right notes with me and you are of course correct. I cannot pretend to be "instintively" right enough times for the wrong mathematical play to be correct. So yes, this is a turn bet 100/100 times.

[Aaron W.]

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The only way I'm checking behind is if aggro villain will check-raise without a queen and will auto-bet any river if I check the turn. Since I act after passive villain, I can get away from my hand for two bets on the river with no problem.

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This is actually very interesting and is something I very often consider but cannot in truth remember whether I did here. A large majority of loose agro guys will bet this river even without a hand and although my guy did have trips there was a strong posibilty that he would have taken a shot at the river even with air, or at least called my river bet that I would have made whether my Jack came or not if checked to.

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But you're only halfway there... If I bet this turn, it's because I know I can fold to a check-raise comfortably. If I can't make that fold, then I'd rather get to a cheap showdown. There's more to this than just inducing a bluff.

If I *CAN* make the fold, then the bet is better spent on the turn to make villains pay to chase or fold out before they have a chance to catch. Unless he has AK, A5, K5, A9, K9, or a flush draw he's drawing to 3 outs or less. I would rather have him call incorrectly to chase than give him the free card. If he has one of those hands, I'm still in the lead and would like to get value out of my hand. (Again, check-raise must mean a queen, otherwise the hand gets expensive fast and makes things really messy.)

[Stealthy]

This hand has come full circle it seems. I started from a position of checking the turn because I suspected a queen was out and also because I did not feel I could fold to a check-raise.

My initial question was whether it is ever correct to check the turn, the conclusion drawn was that it was not. Now we have a respected player saying that if you cannot fold to a check-raise then you can check this turn.

The jury may be out it seems!

:grunch: I think you were right in checking the turn in order to dodge a check/raise.

You have to wonder what your two opponents are following you with after the flop bet. I would guess either a Q, a pocket pair, or if they are really loose maybe just overs.

I would call or just check the river too.

Okay, so my grunch was off.

But this made me think of something else...

What if we were UTG+1? We limp with Qx and hit trips on the flop. Wouldn't you check/call the flop and then check/raise the turn when the bets double? Is that how you should play raggedly flopped trips?

[MrWookie47]

Given the potential flush draw on the board, I'd either donk the flop hoping the preflop raise raises again so I could 3bet, or else I'd c/r. I don't like slow playing in pots with many players.

[Aaron W.]

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This hand has come full circle it seems. I started from a position of checking the turn because I suspected a queen was out and also because I did not feel I could fold to a check-raise.

My initial question was whether it is ever correct to check the turn, the conclusion drawn was that it was not. Now we have a respected player saying that if you cannot fold to a check-raise then you can check this turn.

The jury may be out it seems!

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I rarely like to say it is "never correct" to do anything. It is usually correct to bet this turn. The option to check comes down to a very specific situation where I'm trying to induce villain to make the largest errors possible while putting myself in a position to make the fewest errors possible.

It's all very mathematical in theory, but based on a lot of gut instincts in practice. I'll ignore the donk in the middle, as he complicates this much more than its worth.

What are the possibilities on the turn?

If he has a queen, he's a 95-5 favorite.
If he has a flush draw, you're an 80-20 favorite.
If he has a gutshot of some sort, you're a 90-10 favorite.
If he has Ax, you're a 93-7 favorite.
If he has 5x, you're a 95-5 favorite.
If he has a worse pocket pair, you're a 95-5 favorite.
If he has junk (loose flop peel with unders to catch a pair), he's drawing dead.

If you're ahead, you're something like 85-15 on average to win at showdown and if behind, you're 95-5 to lose. This is a huge spread of possibilities. You want to find a way to minimize the time spend in 95-5 land and increase the time in 85-15 land.

You have two options: check or bet. If you check, he has two options, and if you bet he has 3 options (plus more to come). This means that there are 5 basic possibilities:

1) You check the turn, he bets the river
2) You check the turn, he checks the river
3) You bet the turn, he folds
4) You bet the turn, he calls
5) You bet the turn, he raises

If you *KNEW* he would auto bet everything if you check behind and fold his junk if you bet again, then clearly betting is best because your turn check induces him to bet when he's almost always chasing (regardless of the river card).

If you *KNEW* he would check-raise queens and very few other things and fold his junk hands, then if you bet you know you're in trouble and you can get out. You also prevent him from getting a free chance to outdraw you, which saves you the pot sometimes.

If you *KNEW* he would check-raise queens, flush draws, and some of his pairs, then by betting you find yourself in a position where one of you is in a lot of trouble, but you don't know who. This will cost you 3 BB to get to a showdown. If you knew the exact distribution of his plays, you would be able to determine if it's profitable to call. Of course, you can't do this exactly, so you've got to go with your instincts. Not only this, but you have to balance this circumstance against the times that he would bet the river when you check behind. As you can see, this is very complex.

There are other possibilities (he could call the turn bet, which is almost always an indication you have the best hand). But I won't keep working through those because you should have a sense of how it all works now.

At my level of play, I'm not fond of putting myself in expensive spots where I don't know what's going on. I haven't developed the intuition to sort out the complex situations quickly. So what I tend to do is look for a situation where I can control the opposition. I want to keep him from putting me in tough spots.

Playing in a way to "force" him to auto-bet the river is far better than allowing him to check-raise me if he's tricky enough to check-raise without the queen. I know he will bet a wide range of losing hands on the river, but I don't know precisely what hands he would check-raise (and I won't be able to do the necessary arithmetic to figure out if I should call him down). So I'll take the safer route. I could be giving up some EV if he's going to bluff too often, but (more likely -- since players tend to make tough bluffs too infrequently) I could be saving myself a lot of EV by not paying off flopped trips.

I hope this didn't come out too rambling. I'll say the basic premise again to make sure it's clear: I want villain to make mistakes, not me. If villain is very tricky/aggro, checking the turn will make villain make a large mistake (auto-bet the river) and keep him from making the right play (folding junk). Betting may put me in position to make a large mistake (paying off a queen) with only a small gain in EV (because checking behind already induces a large error, this play doesn't stand to earn much more). So I'd rather check than bet. But keep in mind how much I'm depending on my ability to say that villain check-raises a bunch of hands on the turn, and how much I need to know he will auto-bet the river.

[Stealthy]

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This hand has come full circle it seems. I started from a position of checking the turn because I suspected a queen was out and also because I did not feel I could fold to a check-raise.

My initial question was whether it is ever correct to check the turn, the conclusion drawn was that it was not. Now we have a respected player saying that if you cannot fold to a check-raise then you can check this turn.

The jury may be out it seems!

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I rarely like to say it is "never correct" to do anything. It is usually correct to bet this turn. The option to check comes down to a very specific situation where I'm trying to induce villain to make the largest errors possible while putting myself in a position to make the fewest errors possible.

It's all very mathematical in theory, but based on a lot of gut instincts in practice. I'll ignore the donk in the middle, as he complicates this much more than its worth.

What are the possibilities on the turn?

If he has a queen, he's a 95-5 favorite.
If he has a flush draw, you're an 80-20 favorite.
If he has a gutshot of some sort, you're a 90-10 favorite.
If he has Ax, you're a 93-7 favorite.
If he has 5x, you're a 95-5 favorite.
If he has a worse pocket pair, you're a 95-5 favorite.
If he has junk (loose flop peel with unders to catch a pair), he's drawing dead.

If you're ahead, you're something like 85-15 on average to win at showdown and if behind, you're 95-5 to lose. This is a huge spread of possibilities. You want to find a way to minimize the time spend in 95-5 land and increase the time in 85-15 land.

You have two options: check or bet. If you check, he has two options, and if you bet he has 3 options (plus more to come). This means that there are 5 basic possibilities:

1) You check the turn, he bets the river
2) You check the turn, he checks the river
3) You bet the turn, he folds
4) You bet the turn, he calls
5) You bet the turn, he raises

If you *KNEW* he would auto bet everything if you check behind and fold his junk if you bet again, then clearly betting is best because your turn check induces him to bet when he's almost always chasing (regardless of the river card).

If you *KNEW* he would check-raise queens and very few other things and fold his junk hands, then if you bet you know you're in trouble and you can get out. You also prevent him from getting a free chance to outdraw you, which saves you the pot sometimes.

If you *KNEW* he would check-raise queens, flush draws, and some of his pairs, then by betting you find yourself in a position where one of you is in a lot of trouble, but you don't know who. This will cost you 3 BB to get to a showdown. If you knew the exact distribution of his plays, you would be able to determine if it's profitable to call. Of course, you can't do this exactly, so you've got to go with your instincts. Not only this, but you have to balance this circumstance against the times that he would bet the river when you check behind. As you can see, this is very complex.

There are other possibilities (he could call the turn bet, which is almost always an indication you have the best hand). But I won't keep working through those because you should have a sense of how it all works now.

At my level of play, I'm not fond of putting myself in expensive spots where I don't know what's going on. I haven't developed the intuition to sort out the complex situations quickly. So what I tend to do is look for a situation where I can control the opposition. I want to keep him from putting me in tough spots.

Playing in a way to "force" him to auto-bet the river is far better than allowing him to check-raise me if he's tricky enough to check-raise without the queen. I know he will bet a wide range of losing hands on the river, but I don't know precisely what hands he would check-raise (and I won't be able to do the necessary arithmetic to figure out if I should call him down). So I'll take the safer route. I could be giving up some EV if he's going to bluff too often, but (more likely -- since players tend to make tough bluffs too infrequently) I could be saving myself a lot of EV by not paying off flopped trips.

I hope this didn't come out too rambling. I'll say the basic premise again to make sure it's clear: I want villain to make mistakes, not me. If villain is very tricky/aggro, checking the turn will make villain make a large mistake (auto-bet the river) and keep him from making the right play (folding junk). Betting may put me in position to make a large mistake (paying off a queen) with only a small gain in EV (because checking behind already induces a large error, this play doesn't stand to earn much more). So I'd rather check than bet. But keep in mind how much I'm depending on my ability to say that villain check-raises a bunch of hands on the turn, and how much I need to know he will auto-bet the river.

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What a fantastic analysis. This shows up all too well how few exacts there are in poker and why we love this simple to play, yet very complex game.