A powerful weapon to have in your armoury if used right! A costly exercise when you get it wrong!

There has been some hand history discussion on the forum pages where the check raise has been suggested, I’m going to concentrate on two in particular and give my opinion on what has been suggested and why I think it’s a good/bad move

Hand 1 (5 handed), we are on the SB (75-150) we have Ah Qc the player utg+1 has min raised to 300 and it has been folded to us, we raise to 806, the BB folds and utg+1 calls the re raise, the flop comes 2s 3h 4h, the hand now pauses for discussion and a post is made saying “this is where I get into trouble with these hands check raise”

Hand 2 (6 handed), we are in the BB (100-200) with Kh th, the table folds to the cut-off who raises to 525, it then folds to us and we make the call, the flop comes Ah 7h Tc, what happens next isn’t really relevant to this, what is relevant is a comment in the discussion saying check raise

So 2 hands both from the blinds, 2 very different flops, out of position in both and first to act and 2 suggestions to check raise, so let’s look at hand 1! AQ off suit on a 5 handed table from the sb is playable, but in my opinion you need to isolate the original raiser, this is what we attempt and it works, but the flop is horrible for us all low cards with the possibility of a 5 giving us a str8, our opponents pre-flop raising range is likely to contain some big aces and most pocket pairs down to 88-77 and he was strong enough to raise and then still want to see a flop when re raised! He must have something! Potentially we are drawing to 6 outs here 3xQ and 3xA if he has a middle pocket pair, if he has Ax we are drawing to 3 outs as a 5 will split the pot, so if we check raise here and he re shoves we have to fold as we won’t have enough outs to make the call

Hand 2 is a much better opportunity; calling 325 into a 825 pot to try and protect your blind isn’t a bad play as you are capping the action, the flop is good for us even if the A is worrying, assuming his pre-flop range includes the same hands as hand 1 we could potentially be in front with our TT and behind to any A, AA-JJ, if we check raise here and are re shoved we have enough potential outs to make the call

It doesn’t matter if you sometimes get it wrong or sometimes miss your outs revealing you were drawing to the str8/flush, this can be used to your advantage later when you check raise with top 2 pair, people will look you up expecting you to be drawing to the str8/flush

The check raise is a good move to have but don’t over use it or people will never believe you, and if you miss a couple of draws and people start looking you up more regularly just swap to check raising big made hands, people will still look you up as they will put you on a draw

As always take care all, and win or lose enjoy your poker it’s still only a game