Thoughts on check-raising/slowplaying Vs. rarely doing it?

[KKsuited]

I responded to an earlier post telling someone I rarely check-raise or slowplay.

What's everyone's thoughts?

I recently made that adjustment to my game and it has helped a ton. I get a lot more action with my big hands and it is much easier to build my stack. I play a lot of hands and I'm pretty agressive with all of them.

Constantly pounding of other players makes them fight back, and many times they'll fight back with weaker hands than normal.

The style obviously comes from supersystem. I now laugh at most check-raises (I say most b/c there is a time and place) at the 2/4 table. People feel so "craftey" when they check-raise when in reality it costs them many future bets. I don't want people to fear me. Please, feel free to put money in my pots.

Just wondering what some of the good players on 2+2 thought.

[AceKQJT]

Check-raising is a useful tool. Whether to use it depends on a lot of factors:

1. You want to limit the field. After you check, a bet has come from late or last position. You raise, forcing everyone in between to call 2 bets cold.

2. You want to build a pot, and the guy to your left was the pre-flop raiser. You check, he bets, you check-raise. Now everyone only has to call 1 more bet, so you are building a pot, giving *seemingly* correct odds for them to chase on 4th street.

Of course, you already know this if you've read TOP.

--Casey

[KKsuited]

Right, as I said, there is a time and place.

I most often see what I consider to be a misstake (I'm no pro) of either check-raising or slowplaying with big hands (not monsters, but big). I understand building a pot or isolating, but in general I think this type of play limits money to be made in future pots.

I'm also only talking about No-limit. Limit is different.

Most of the time when I check-raise, I'm on a draw or a stone cold bluff.

Some of it comes down to not trying to hit the homerun, but winning a lot of smaller pots. Build your stack, then have chips to gamble with. This is Gus Hansen'd style exactly. People give him a hard time for being so lucky, but he just builds his stack to where he can gamble with non-premium hands.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir for many of you.

[gergery]

There’s a great post by natedogg in the archives on this, and someone can post a link to it.

He basically says “almost never slowplay in NL, and never ever slowplay in limit”, because you should be betting so often when you miss or have average hands that this helps cover of make up for those and you will get action. You also give your hand away with slowplays.

Personally, I rarely slowplay vs. tight or typical opponents. But love slowplaying against the overaggressive LAGs that are in many Party tourneys, and have won many chips vs. them.

--Greg

[Rocaix]

I think what you are referring to is called defining your hand. This is a mistake alot of novices and intermediates make in higher-stakes no-limit.

Playing a predictable ABC game, where you will only checkraise or reraise without a big hand, i.e playing agressively only when your sure to be ahead. And playing passively when you do not have a big hand.

This style gives your opponents huge implied odds against you when you do have a hand, especially if you are an EP raiser. They know what you are likely to have and you will no clue what they have.

Obviously to beat higher levels it's important to not define your hand, and represent a wide range of hands to keep your opponents guessing. In simpler terms, playing tricky e.g. check-raise overbet with nothing, to set up a guy for a later check-raise overbet with the nuts.

Though it should be mentioned that at lower levels, like 10+1 tournaments, playing straightforward ABC poker is often enough to get yourself deep into the money. At those levels, most players simply could care less what you have, and are only playing their hands. They'll often gladly call your all-in check-raise on a coordinated board with middle pair. So there's no need to be tricky, just pound them when you have hand.

[KKsuited]

Gergery - I think you see what I'm saying.

Doyle says never slow play for 2 reasons.
1) If you're constantly betting at pots, you will win a lot of pots without a showdown. You can build your stack in order to be able to gamble later. Players will know you are aggressive and wait for a big hand to try to get you with. While they're waiting, you're winning pots.

2) Betting a lot of pots insures you will get action when you pick up big hands.

Hiding your hand is part of it, but not the main idea. Of course you don't want your opponent to know what you have, but that's not the most important reason not to check-raise and slowplay.

When you CR & SP, other players are now affraid of you. They don't want to bet at pots because they are affraid they are being slowplayed. They will often checkdown good hands. You make players tight, which is what you don't want.

[davidross]

I think every weapon has it's place, and these are just 2 of the weapons you have available to you. I'm not sure if you are talking about ring games or tournaments here, but I use them differently in each situation. In ring games I tend to use check-raises to limit fields from EP, and slowplay only monsters because usually there are more players in the hand. In tournaments I seem to be heads up much more often, so I love to check-raise aggressive players. I'm pretty tight, so I don't get a lot of action post flop if I bet. I use slow plays or check raises when I'm pretty sure I can get my opponent to bet for me.

I think it's a personal choice that can work either way. I just think it's important that you use the tools in a fashion that fits the rest of your game. If you're playing a lot of hands and betting them on the flop, then you don't need to check-raise. I play fewer hands, and check-fold a lot, so the check-raise comes in handy for me.

[tek]

[ QUOTE ]

1. You want to limit the field. After you check, a bet has come from late or last position. You raise, forcing everyone in between to call 2 bets cold.

2. You want to build a pot, and the guy to your left was the pre-flop raiser. You check, he bets, you check-raise. Now everyone only has to call 1 more bet, so you are building a pot, giving *seemingly* correct odds for them to chase on 4th street.--Casey

[/ QUOTE ]

According to S/M, item 1 would be a good semi-bluff while item 2 would be a good way to trap "making it easy for someone to call".

[KKsuited]

You're right David, just different styles.

I like to raise a lot, bet a lot of flops, constantly put my opponent to a decision. If you don't play that way, then check raising may be a better tool to use.

Also, I think S/M style would be much different than mine. I've read their books and they have great ideas, I just don't play that way. Dave S is a great cash ring game player. I think there are better tournament experts.

For my style, which I've tried to clone Doyle and Gus Hansen (tho I would never claim to understand the game the way they do) checking raising is not a good move for me.

Dan Harrington is a tighter player who traps more often and uses slow playing and check-raises more often. He's done pretty well [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

I was only talking about NL tournaments. Limit is a different deal.