Checking and Calling

A good friend of mine has told me on more than one occasion that he hates "checking and calling." If he is in a pot, he wants to be the bettor or the raiser. He thinks the key to success in poker is to be aggressive and deceptive. "You can't be successful in poker when you are checking and calling," he tells me. According to him, good players win money by getting paid off on their good hands and by stealing pots, so the key to success is to keep your betting arm in motion once you decide to play. While I have to acknowledge that he is a winning player, I nevertheless think most people who play this way usually end up being losers.

Success in poker involves making good decisions by selecting the best action from a variety of options. Betting, checking, folding, calling, and raising are options. There is nothing inherently good or bad about any option. Like a master craftsman, the good player selects the right tool from his tool kit depending upon the particulars of a given job. Ruling out checking or calling limits your options and makes it harder to get the job done.

In a full-table limit hold'em game with pots involving multiple players, checking and calling is often more correct than betting and raising. Unless you have a big hand or a strong reason to believe that the opposition will magically cave in when you bet or raise, checking and calling is frequently right. The following hands, taken from live-action play, illustrate some of the considerations that come into play.

Hand No. 1 ($20-$40 game): Under the gun, you have the A Ku and open with a raise. An early-position player, two middle-position players, the cutoff, and the button all cold-call. The big blind, a solid and experienced player, now reraises. Everyone calls. There is $430 in the pot and seven players.

The flop is 9u 5 2, leaving you with your two big overcards. The big blind bets. What should you do?

Answer: I posted this as a problem on an Internet forum and got more than a dozen responses. They were about equally divided between raising or folding. Those who advocated raising argued that when pots get large, you should do everything you can to improve your chances of winning, even when you are pretty sure that you do not have the best hand. You might drive out one of the other players who otherwise would have stayed and gone on to take the pot away from you when you do improve, according to them. But for this to be right, a long-shot parlay is required. Specifically, (1) you have to improve, (2) your improvement results in a better hand than what is currently the best hand, (3) one opponent's hand would have improved to a better hand than your improved hand, (4) no one else improves to beat you, and (5) that opponent's hand will be folded specifically because you raised. But the combined probability of all five of these events occurring is usually on the order of about 1 percent. To get a feel for how this number might be derived, start with (1), the probability of your hand improving on the next card. You have six outs from 47 unseen cards, which is about 13 percent. Now, take the 13 percent and multiply it by the probabilities of each of the other four events happening and you will see how quickly it gets reduced to a very low number. So, unless the pot has about 100 bets in it, spending an extra bet is probably not worth it. Furthermore, in this specific example, it may even get reraised, costing you two extra bets. This is quite likely to happen, since the big blind will usually have pocket aces, pocket kings, or pocket queens in this situation.

What about folding? Even when the big blind has aces, kings, or queens in this situation, you have six outs to beat pocket queens. Given that you have an ace and a king, there are only three ways for him to have aces, three ways for him to have kings, and six ways for him to have queens. So, about half the time, you are a 7-to-1 dog to improve to a better hand than the big blind. There will also be times when you catch an ace and he has pocket kings or pocket queens. With $450 in the pot, you are getting tremendous pot odds to stay with your hand for another $20. I think folding is wrong given the pot size. For these reasons, calling is the right play, in my opinion.

Hand No. 2 ($30-$60 game): You are in the small blind with the 7 6. An early-position player, a middle-position player, and the cutoff limp in. You also limp in. There is $150 in the pot and five players.

The flop is K 7 3, giving you middle pair. Everyone checks.

The turn is the J. What should you do?

Answer: Check. Betting would be bad poker. You have too many opponents to win the pot outright. The jack is likely to pair someone, since hands containing facecards as well as aces are the kinds of hands with which players limp in. A bet will get called in at least one spot, if not others. In addition, this flop is the type with which some players with top pair, decent kicker will try to trap by check-raising. Some guys will check K-Q or K-J on the flop, planning to check-raise. When the flop doesn't get bet, they will frequently bet or raise on the turn.

Hand No. 3 ($10-$20 game): You limp in from middle position with the K 10 after an early-position player limps in. The cutoff calls. There is $45 in the pot and four players.

The flop is A 7 3, giving you the nut-flush draw. The big blind bets and the early-position player calls. What should you do?

Answer: Just call, don't raise. You have virtually no chance of winning the pot without hitting, since you have two players already committed. Furthermore, you have a garden-variety draw and should not want to chase out the remaining player.

Hand No. 4 ($10-$20 game): You are in the small blind with the Q J. An early-position player and two middle-position players limp in. You also limp in. There is $50 in the pot and five players.

The flop is K Q 7, giving you middle pair and a backdoor-flush draw. What should you do?

Answer: The flop contains both a two-flush and two cards in a playing zone (K-Q), which rates to have helped some of your many opponents. Your bet could easily get raised by someone with top pair, since many of the hands with which players limp in contain a king. Your bet does not rate to win the pot outright, and there figures to be some good draws out there, as well. The other problem is that your jack kicker complements the board, so if you turn two pair, that would also put three parts to a straight on the table (K-Q-J), making you a big dog to hands like K-J, A-10, or 10-9. You should check.

Hand No. 5 ($10-$20 game): You are on the button with the Q Q. Everyone limps in except a middle-position player, who folds. You raise and everyone calls. There is $180 in the pot and nine players.

The flop is J 9 3, giving you an overpair. Both blinds check. An early-position player bets. Everyone calls except for another early-position player and the cutoff, who fold. You raise, and only the small blind folds. There is $300 in the pot and six players.

The turn is the Q, giving you top set. The big blind checks. Both early-position players check. The first middle-position player bets and the next middle-position player calls. What should you do?

Answer: Call. It is tempting to raise here with top set. But, when you have five opponents who paid two bets to see the turn after a two-flush flop, you know that someone was on a flush draw and got there when the third flush card arrived. You have 10 outs to a full house or quads. These are drawing odds of 3.6-to-1 against. One might argue that for every $1 you raise, as long as you are getting $3.60 pulled into the pot, it is right for you to raise. But just because there are enough players in the pot to make the odds look right does not mean that raising is correct. The reason is, some players may fold and the pot could get reraised. Someone with the ace-high flush knows he has the nuts and will reraise.