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Check-Raise in Pot Limit Omaha
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In Pot Limit Omaha, when you check-raise, the majority of the time, you either have the nuts or air. Although the range you are representing are representing is polarized, your opponents will fold a decent amount because for the times you have the nuts, they might not have many outs.
A simple example is on a flop of 7
6
5, when you check-raise, you are representing 89xx. If you have a solid image, it is pretty tough for him to call with a made hand that is worse than two pairs with no redraw. Once your flop check-raise gets called, it is probably a good idea to give up since your opponent's range is fairly strong if he can call a check-raise on a 765 board.
Check-raising is very profitable against players who continuation bet too much. Obviously, you don't want to overdo it or else your opponents might catch on and start checking back more or start floating you; great players can 3-bet bluff you as well. Of course, if they are great players, then they wouldn't continuation bet too much in the first place. It is best to check-raise when you have a blocker to the nuts on the board or when you have a pair with some backdoor draws. When you have backdoor draws, you can continue on a lot of turns. For example, on a flop of 95
3, it is better to check-raise with a hand such as ATJ4 than with a hand such as Q
QT8. Let's compare the two hands and see why.
If Villain has air, he will fold to a check-raise so it doesn't matter what hand you have. If your check-raise gets called, ATJ4 have a lot of turns to continue with while having decent equity in the pot. If you get 3-bet on the flop, ATJ4 doesn't have value at showdown anyway so folding doesn't lose that much value. When holding a hand such as QQT8, your hand has some showdown value in a small pot. You also don't want to overplay your hand and check-raising does exactly this. Lastly, although QQT8 has some outs on the turn to continue, you are rarely drawing to the nuts.
A good hand to check-raise with is when you have a pair to go with three overcards. For example, holding AKTJ on a board of T45, check-raising is fine. If you get called, there are a lot of cards on the turn for you to continue your aggression without fear of drawing dead. In the same scenario, donk betting is a better option if your opponent is passive and doesn't continuation bet often. You likely have the best hand but you don't mind taking down the pot. This is a very important concept in Pot Limit Omaha because your opponent's range has so much equity in the pot that the majority of the time, you are happy ending the pot even if it means you are ahead in the hand. The reason is future streets might be difficult to play and you might not know what you do on majority of future cards.
