Raising turn after flop gets check through

Even at the lower levels of no limit these days most players understand the concept of bluffing scare cards especially when they are the preflop raiser. I have seen old guys actually cbet AQ on king high boards knowing that it will be difficult for people to call them with anything but a king on a dry board. I've also started to see more experienced low level players fire a second barrel on the turn when over cards come in on ragged boards that should hit their preflop raising range.

Along with this new sense of cbetting the right types of boards better players know which boards not to cbet. Say for example we raise with a hand like A♥ K♥ from early position and we get four people that call us. The flop comes out 5♠ 6♠ 7♣. It would basically be suicide for us to cbet this type of texture with this many players. So often times, when you notice what good players do, they will check. Let us say that we are in position instead, with A♥ K♥, and the same board comes out. It gets checked to us and we decide to check the flop back. If you are paying attention, most of the time you should realize that the preflop raiser will rarely have a pair in this spot. So, when the turn comes say an ace or a king and it is checked to him again, if he bets his range is normally capped at one pair and often times, when more shorthanded, he will be bluffing. So if we have some sort of big draw from out of position and we were planning on check raising the flop we can easily add a ton of fold equity by check raising the turn instead.

Let us examine this situation again. The flop is 5♠ 6♠ 7♥. The flop gets checked around. Now, the turn is the Ad and we expect the preflop raiser to bet this card or use it as a bluff. If we have a hand like 9♠ T♠ not only will we win more money by checking and letting him bluff but we will also give ourselves way more fold equity then coming out and betting and letting him just call.

This is a very sophisticated play and only should be used against opponents who you think are capable of folding one pair type hands. However, turn raises are usually an indication of more strength than flop raises at the lower levels and some players who would not release one pair hands on the flop certainly will when facing a lot of heat on the turn.

To add one other twist to this I actually advocate playing a little backwards and unbalanced after this scare card comes and you DID flop a big hand. I would much rather lead turn lead river for large bets to get maximum value then blow my opponent off of his one pair hand with a turn check raise. You would be amazed at how light someone will look you up on the river when all of the draws brick out. Because players are so inherently polarized in their river betting tendencies they will think that you are bluffing often.