10- 6-04, LearnTexasHoldem:

Checking Preflop in the BB With Strong Hand

Question: I know that pre-flop raising when you have a good hand serves two main purposes: to force out mediocre starting hands that decrease your percentage of winning and to get more money in the pot to win. I also know that there are several hands that almost always mandate a pre-flop raise for those reasons.

Well, here's a situation that comes up fairly frequently: You're in the big blind. The tables goes around and then the dealer is looking at you to check or bet since everyone either called or folded. You look down and lo and behold, you have a good hand, the kind you would usually raise.

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When the big blind checks, he could literally have anything. Having the rest of the table literally have no idea what you have (or even better, wrongly assuming that you to have a weaker hand than you actually have) is a huge advantage in poker, sometimes even better than actually having the best hand if you play it right.

Bearing all this in mind, under what circumstances, if any, would you feel it advantageous to check with a good hand in the Big Blind as opposed to raising?

Answer: That happens pretty often, you get AA in the BB or some other great hand. How I play it depends on how many people called preflop before me and whether it is no limit or limit holdem.

First, let's cover limit holdem: If everyone has called preflop, it is a "family" pot, then I would be less likely to raise with big cards like AA, KK, and QQ. I would raise though with AKs, AQs, etc. The reason I wouldn't want to raise with my big pairs is that everyone is going to call and that gives them incredible odds on the flop to try to catch anything. My hand is only one pair and it has little chance of improving.

Instead of raising preflop in that position with everyone in, I'll go for a check raise on the flop in hopes to knock some players out. In limit holdem if there are 5 or less callers then I'll go ahead and raise. I won't be surprised if I lose to a draw but I'll play it straightforwardly. I would be more likely to raise smaller pairs, AKs, AQs, etc in limit holdem preflop with lots of players in then the big pairs.

If I raise a hand like 88 preflop with 9 callers and I flop an 8 I'm good. If I miss the flop I might peal one card off but my decision is easy. I also like the big suited Aces like AKs and AQs in volume pots more then I like AA. Once again I won't get married to the pot if I miss like I would with AA or KK and if I do flop an A or K then I have more outs to improve if I am behind in the hand.

Now in no limit it is completely different. If I have a big pair in the BB and everyone has just limped in, I'm definitely going to raise. I'm going to raise a lot more then I normally would too because there is so much money already in the pot and with so many contenders the chances of one person coming after me even after a large raise is still likely.

I don't want to raise a small enough amount to let 3 people in. You might also want to note for future reference is that a common bluff in no limit is to raise your own BB when everyone else has just limped in. That's why I almost never slow play AA or KK unless someone else has done the raising. I want to make sure I get the right amount of opponents for the rest of the hand.

Not raising AA against a lot of opponents preflop in a no limit game is a big error especially when you consider how hard it will be to fold it later -- you want to avoid creating trapping situations for yourself.

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