Check-raise on the flop against the c-bet from the standpoint of the TRP

Translated with the help of AI. We apologize for any errors and would appreciate your help in correcting them.

Translated by order of the educational portal university.poker
Article author: Matt Hunt, original source: GTO Wizard

Check-raise in poker (C/R) is a situation where you wait without a position (OER) and raise after the player's bet in the position. You can check-raise only by playing without a position. When you wait in position (IP), you just look at the next community card, so a check-raise is not possible. When used correctly, check-raise is a very insidious weapon. If you want to play GTO poker, you are required to check out at a certain frequency to protect your check range. 

1. Why do you need to check out?

It is very easy to overplay a player who is not a check-raiser. If your opponent never villain check-raises, or in this spectrum he has very few hands, you can exploit it, for example, by placing bet for a free showdown with mediocre hands that can not hold a check-raise. These mediocre hands you would have to check against players who play check-raise with sufficient frequency, as they are too weak for a check-raise call. In addition, a player who does not check-raise enough will have difficulty realizing the equity of their weakest hands, such as straight draws who do not have a showdown valley, and getting paid for their strongest hands.

2. How do I find a check-raise on the flop? Which hands should I choose?

The best hands for check-raising on the flop will be very strong hands that are not afraid of any turns, and hands that are not strong enough for a call (weak draw with backdoors, but without showdown valley), which can improve on the following streets (turn/river) with a fairly high probability. You should check-raise with a semi-polarized range (strongest and weakest hands). The task of check-raising is always either to get the maximum value from your strong hands, or to make the opponent fold his hand better. However, sometimes, in order to protect your range, it is better not to check out at all.

In some spots, you can't use check-raise

Before looking for a check-raise, think about whether the card or board is suitable for your or your opponent's rendezvous. In general, you should check-raise either when your range allows you to do this on the flop (flops from low cards, paired or dynamic flops), or when a card came out on the turn/river that could improve your hand. You will never want to check the flop  and then raising your opponent's continued bet. On flops that have helped your opponent's spectrum, you need to call or fold across your entire range.

3. Check Raise Skill | Let's analyze / study the different flops

First, let's come up with a situation. Suppose that we are on the big blind, the button button has slammed 2 bb, and you have called. Your effective stacks are 50 big blinds at the level of 10/20 (1000 chips), and 90 chips in the pot on the flop. As always, we will use a poker tool — Piosolver — to get closer to optimal strategies in terms of game theory. Piosolver is a very fast GTO solver for Hold 'em. It handles post-flop situations with arbitrary initial spectra, stacks, bet sizes, and with desired accuracy. This is the first in a new generation of tools that transform poker from a game based on intuition into a game based on analysis and mathematics.

Preflop range

Let's look at preflop situations.

Below Opponent Opening Range on Button (45%)

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Your range of protection against 2 bb open-raise from the button (50%)

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On this very dry flop, your opponent has an advantage in the edge (given that it is quite difficult to get into such a board). Therefore, you should never dunk such a flop.

Below you see with which hands your villain must counter-bet if he wants to remain non-exploited. Hands marked with green are suggested to check, and with marked red — to put c-bet.  

 Here's how we should react to an opponent's continued bet. With the hands marked in green, it is proposed to call the continued bet, the ones marked in red are proposed to check-raise and the ones marked in blue are proposed to fold. 

On a paired   rainbow type flop, we should check-raise the valley with very strong hands (7x, full houses) and with those with which you are likely ahead, but with which there will be problems on the following streets (Tx 3x, Jx 3x, Ax 3x, etc.) You should also check-raise the bluff when you have some equity () that may increase on the later streets. The reason you might want to check-raise weak draw and some hands with backdoors (backdoor flash, for example) is that you have a better chance of winning the pot by playing them aggressively. If you play these weak hands through a check-call, you will often have to give up this pot and at some point fall off.

4. Exploit the trends of the field

Now we know which hands to check-raise against players betting a cbet with a TRP frequency and sized (small) on a low paired flop, but what if my villain counterbet almost all hands on such a flop, and what if a large sizing?

How do we exploit this? Well, your villain makes himself very vulnerable to check-raises, and I think most players are very exploited in such spots.

We need to adjust accordingly and check-raise more than 7x and 3x hands, as well as check, and then raising with most (if not all) of our backdoors. And we can add some clean bluff without equity, such as Tx 9x, Tx 8x, Qx 9x, etc. It is advisable to have hand blockers with which the opponent can float your check-raise; for example,: blocks part of the hands from the middle of the range, with which the floating could well make sense.

What should I do on the turn? 

1. We want to move on, continuing to bet on blank runouts (Kx, Tx, Jx, 9x, etc.) with most of our spectrum using various sizing.
2. We benefit from a small size of bet on fine value and with good / medium draw hands. A prolonged small-size bet on the turn looks very strong (as if you want to lure an opponent), and this allows you to continue bluffing, even with small bets.
3. You should continue to bet a small bet on the turn with Velu hands, which block most of the potential Velu hands of your opponent (7x 7x or 7x 3x, for example) to draw him into the pot. What could he possibly have? It will fall off if you bet a lot.
4. If your hand improves to a pair (with Tx 9x, for example), you should counter-bet the turn at a rate of 35% for a fine valley; not always, but often. Mix the size of your bet!
5. On the other hand, with good but vulnerable hands, you need to bet a lot, as well as with hands without equity, which benefit from the opponent's folds. Polarize your range more when you make big bet. 

Same spot, different flop

The initial conditions in the next hand that we will analyze are the same. Depth 50bb, BU opened and we called. The same preflop range.

This flop is very different from what we have studied before. It refers to dynamic structures, and your check-raise will get a lot more action. You can see again with which hands your villain must place an extended bet if he wants to remain unexploited. 

This is because our villain has a huge advantage in the range and we have a lot of hands with which maybe we won't have problems on the flop, but not on the turn or river, especially against a big bet. Our opponent has many more strong hands than we do. As you can see, you should rarely check out dynamic flops with high cards.

1. But why? Mainly because if you check-raise on a dynamic flop with your strongest hands, then your call range becomes so weak. That you will rarely reach the river with it, especially if your opponent knows that you are making this mistake and check-raising your nuts too often.
2. Your range is already dribbled on the flop  , and if you keep knocking your strong hands out of the already dribbled spectrum, you'll be in big trouble with all the pairs, middle pairs, etc.
3. We have no sets except maybe 50% of pocket eights, and maybe 30-50% of our J9s, assuming sometimes we tribet 8-8 and J9s on preflop.
4. Our range consists of many hands that find it difficult to reach the river when our villain puts pressure on their bets. He can put a lot of pressure on us on the late streets, and even more if we start to check-raise our strongest hands here (mainly J-9).
5. You rarely want to get involved and check-raise such a flop with a gatshot and a backdoor flash draw or similar weak hands. In this scenario, your best bet is to call or fold with most of your range.

5. Analyzing another flop

The last flop we are going to look at quickly. Nothing has changed except that other cards have come out.

 

What do you think? It often makes sense to check-raise this flop or "call or fold" would be the best strategy? We do not have a particularly strong lag in the range here, as we will have many more Kx hands than the button. Maybe it hints at a check-raise? Here's what our villain will counter-bet on the flop if he plays GTO. 

Wow! He can bet almost anything! Since there are a lot of hands in our spectrum with which we have nothing to draw on such a flop, our villain can bet an extended bet with almost any two very small sized 20% of the pot. We just have to dump most of our hands, even against his small 20% bet. We can check out a decent number of hands here.

1. Why? There are several reasons why we can check out “so many” hands here (20%). First, he counter-bet all his weak hands, which he will partially have to choose against our raise.
2. And secondly, because he does not have an advantage in the range. We have a lot more Kx combinations than he does and that's why our bluff check-raise is justified given that we have so many Velu Hands.
3. On this flop, we should, again, check-raise mainly with super-strong hands (good Kx, sets, etc.) and hands with backdoor equity. Hands like   or perfectly check out bluff, as they can increase to a flash or straight as a bluff. Don't underestimate backdoor equity!
4. As you can see, you should not check the value too thinly.
5. Also don't make the mistake of checking out all your Kx's. These hands should be plentiful in your check-call range as well. In addition, you block many hands that could pay for your check-raise with a weak thrips. These hands are not strong enough for three Velho value streets!

6. The last flop, I promise

We've covered most types of flops, but one is missing. Dynamic flop with low cards! Let's analyze it together. The last flop to be analyzed. 
 

 

Here is what our villain counter bet on such a flop, if he plays GTO:

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What do you think this time? Check-raise sometimes or not at all check-raise? Let's see. We can only check out 11% on a low dynamic flop.

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6. What did we learn?

So, let's write down the most important theses that we learned from this article:

1. The more nut hands possible on the flop, the less you want to check-raise (7x 6x 4x, such as Tx 9x Jx).
2. A flop that allows more draw hand than ready-made monsters is more attractive for increasing the check-raise frequency.
3. It is not necessary to check out those flops on which your opponent has an advantage in the range (Ax Ax x, etc.) edge.
4. Low paired flops are great for putting pressure on your opponent with your check-raise.
5. Reinforce your check-raises as a bluff with the presence of backdoor equity. You should rarely check-raise your hands without equity.

Nikita Prokudin - NikiT_88

Professional poker player. Specialist in the search and selection of high-quality foreign content. Specialist in working with GTO Wizard.

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