Well…we’re getting a little technical here. Check calling is not betting for value. Betting for value means that we believe we have the best hand and we want to extract the max amount we can. If we fire bullets on the flop and turn, this will certainly scare a player with a marginal hand and wont be able to call anything on the river.
Lets look at it different. We always want to check to the raiser. Either we missed and maybe he’ll check it back, we check call for pot control (if we missed but still have decent equity), or we can check call or check raise with a strong hand.
Why check to the raiser? He’s shown strength pre-flop, likely he will c-bet or represent an ace. Betting could scare him away as you are representing an ace he doesn’t have. So we want him to stick around with weaker aces and under pairs. So check to the raiser and he should c-bet. When we call, if he doesn’t have a decent ace, this will be scary with a smooth call.
On the turn, we don’t want to check, because he may very well check back. There are not a lot of hands he’s holding where he’ll feel comfortable betting out. So we bet to let him pot control (hence extract value). So if the pot was $50, I like a $20 bet. Its a value that should keep him coming along if he has any equity in the hand. He also might read this as a weak bet and try to come over the top with a bluff. We like that too. So now the pot is $90. We feel comfortable we have the best hand and again he’s only going to call with an ace… so we don’t want to bet too strong. If we think he’s weak, we have to bet something he may call. Maybe just $30 or $40 bet. If he wants to get cute and re-raise, we’re happy to call (of course all under the assumption that he has an under pair or weaker ace).
Regardless, he didn’t have squat, but things may have changed if you gave him a chance to c-bet after the flop. Hopefully that was clearer
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This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by DeeKay.