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The Ethics
of Check-Raising
There are some amateur poker players who find something reprehensible
about check-raising. They find it devious and deceitful and
consider people who use it to be less than well-bred. Well,
check-raising is devious and it is deceitful, but being devious
and deceitful is precisely what one wants to be in a poker
games, as is implied by the Fundamental Theorem of Online
Poker Games.
Checking with the intention of raising is one way to do that.
In a sense, check-raising and slow playing are the opposites
of bluffing, in which you play a weak hand strongly. If check-raising
and slow playing were not permitted, the games of poker would
lose just about as much as it would if bluffing and semi-bluffing
were not permitted. Indeed the two types of play complement
one another, and a good player should be adept at both of
them. The check-raise is a powerful weapon. It is simply another
tool with which a poker player practices his art. Not allowing
check-raising in your home games is something like not allowing,
say, the hit and run in a baseball games or the option pass
in a football games. Without it poker loses a significant
portion of its strategy, which, apart from winning money,
is what makes the games fun. I'm much more willing to congratulate
an opponent for trapping me in a check-raise than for drawing
out on me on a call he shouldn't have made in the first place
- and if I am angry at anyone, it is at myself for falling
into the trap.
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