Check - Raise

[vexvelour]

It's nice to hear that there are other female players out there that utilize check-raise out there, it's just a shame that like myself, they get peed on for it.

Your friend's situation is exactly the same as mine...I'm the only girl, and when "friends of regulars" come over to play with us, they totally under-estimate my patience, as well as my strong hands. It makes money for a while, but after a while it becomes damning.

[RydenStoompala]

If you're consistantly getting a sexual bias from other betters, you may wish to use it more frequently than others. If they "come back over the top" on your check raising, then you can build great pots and boost your odds. Lucky you. Wear pigtails, black out one of your teeth and go to town.

[vexvelour]

Yeah, I wish it was that profitable.

In the home games, players have become wise to this, because it's always the same people, which is why the berating starts, on and on.

It's more profitable in the case you're talking about at a casino or boat....unfortunately I don't get out to either too often, cause I live in FL and theres a casino 2 hours away to the west and one 4 hours south...and a boat an hour away. Booo.

[bolgenmod]

What they said.

Really: exploit the check-raise at the casino, especially since you're a woman. I once saw a woman raise preflop and then check-raise on the flop, turn, AND river, and the bozos in the hand (I had folded preflop) just didn't believe her and two actually called the river check-raise! Of course, she had the almost stone cold nuts: an aces full boat (only someone who had a pocket pair to match the board pair, which btw paired on the river, could have beat her, but no one did!). Oh, they bitched -- "I can't believe you checkraised twice/three times" -- but they couldn't believe that as a woman she knew how to play. So they bet into her and called and called even though it was clear to me that she had nothing but strength. Amazing. (And easier to see when you're out of the hand, of course!)

As for the home game, if you are the only person using the c/r, they are idiots. One of the reasons to use the c/r is to mix up your game, to make your checks seem not necessarily a sign of weakness, but possibly of strength. If they only check when they're weak, they're giving you a tremendous informational advantage. (Do they ever slow-play?)

Sure, it's a pain when they bitch, but you don't want them to start c/ring, so don't explain yourself. You don't want to give them the advantage. Just keep on doing it and try to shrug their comments off.

You might also want to take advantage of your tight image and their fear of the c/r by c/ring with a vulnerable hand that might still win -- use it as a semi-bluff -- like a nut flush draw with the low pair on the flop. It might take them a while to catch on to the fact that you're not c/ring with the nuts, and when they do, you can start getting paid off better when you do have the nuts ("she's just bluffing again -- I have to call") instead of having them all fold. And if you c/r more often, they might get more used to it, instead of facing a torrent of abuse.

I don't know your players, but you might find some way of shutting them up. Play on their macho ("are you big strong men afraid of a little bitty c/r?") or something. It's not fun to have them mad at you, but if they're focusing on you and not their own play, there's an advantage in that too. Or tell them to grow up: check-raising is a normal part of poker. And it's awfully fun too.

Good luck.

[krimson]

Bring headphones to B&M. Then if someone starts berating you for a checkraise, just pop in your headphones and turn on some music. This tends to outrage the person trying to complain to you but you don't need to worry about it because you can't hear them.

[coffeecrazy1]

And...I have learned to like it when players start b*tching, because that is usually a sure sign of the onset of tilt. If someone started griping at me over a checkraise, I believe that I would attempt to checkraise him again as soon as possible.

And, I agree with ninja...I think checkraising is extremely valuable, but gets overused. I would only checkraise my rock-solid hands, or situations where I could represent a rock-solid hand, and thought that I would be believed. Any other time, it's time to bet out(i.e. TPTK). Remember, what you don't want to do is give away a free card, so be fairly certain someone else will bet.