A NOTE ON CHECK-RAISING

Many poker players talk about the art of check-raising. Most poker players know exactly what it means but do they know when to attempt it with their personalized poker chips? We shall examine this issue here in depth. The main point to note is that you must mix up your poker play and try not to become too predictable otherwise the more skilled poker players at the poker table will eat up your personalized poker chips.

Put simply, check-raising means just what it says. You check your poker hand, hoping another poker player to act after you will make a bet with his/her personalized poker chips. Then, in the same betting and gambling round, you re-raise this bet with your personalized poker chips in order to get more out of the pot. So although most poker players automatically assume that checking is a sign that your poker hand is weak and not worth betting on, this move means that sometimes a check is a sign of massive strength! This confuses poker opponents and adds a new dimension to your poker and Texas Holdem armoury which you should use sparingly so as not to become too predictable.

You must only attempt the check-raise if you are sure of two things:

1) You currently have the strongest poker hand
2) You are sure that a poker player behind you will raise with his personalized poker chips

The worst thing to do is have top pair on the flop with a good kicker, check from early position only to see no other poker player bet any personalized poker chips in this poker gambling round. Then a nightmare turn card pops out, for example pairing the board (making trips or a full house possible) or a third suited card comes out (creating flush potential). You wish you bet the flop because you could have taken a nice pot of personalized poker chips there and then!

Certain poker players will more often than not bet personalized poker chips whenever they are checked to. These poker players are often good ones to check-raise to. Poker is a game of imperfect information so you can never be absolutely sure that another poker player will bet if checked to. But you can make a sound, risk-based judgement on whether they will bet personalized poker chips or not. If you don’t think they will bet, you must bet the flop as you would usually do to limit the field and exclude the element of luck from the poker hand.