The lead-out/re-raise is the new check/raise

Royal will attest that back in the "good ol' days" a couple years ago when we played Sunday Night Poker, check/raising and slow playing were well and good. This was because you had some characters like Krazy Karl who you could count on to be hyper-aggressive once he hits his hand or a calling station like Chris who will call an all-in with A7os on a paired board (non-Ace pair btw). Well those days are gone and we're playing with a different crowd now.

So what is better than a check/raise? The lead-out/re-raise! For example. Timid Timmy Transparent opens the betting with an overbet of 14. You can put him squarely on a big pair. He is not going to raise up with a 46 or junky hand like that, he is straightforward and you can gauge his hand strength by his bet. You call with Snowmans and it is heads up going into the flop. Flop comes out a glorious 258 rainbow. You are out of position so what do you do? His and your 14 and some blinds make the pot about 30. If you check/raise, your opponent will probably bet out the pot or so and if you raise then you will take down 60 chips since Timmy is timid and knows that check/raising means strength. However, if you lead out for 30 instead and making it look like you have A8 or 89, something like that, then in order for Timmy to show that he has an overpair and how strong his hand is, he will need to commit AT LEAST 60 to the pot and probably more like a raise to between 75-90. Now if you re-raise him you have made two or three times as much on the flop alone. Timmy's raise may even be enough to pot commit him depending on his stack. An example of this was when Jeh flopped the nut straight against Matt's overpair. With the pot as big as it was pre-flop, leading out even a half-pot sized bet by Jeh would have forced Matt to throw in a huge re-raise to put Jeh in his place. Then at that point I think the money gets in. A lot of cards can kill the action on the turn (like an Ace to a pair of Kings) and you want to let the person with the powerful hand hammer the pot while they are behind.

Another variation on this is what I call a "seed bet", an underbet to the pot that is looking for a re-raise. Let's say you put your opponent on a strong Ace and the flop comes out Ace high but gives you two pair. This is an occasion where being out of position is actually helpful because you can throw in a seed bet knowing that you are going to get popped which opens the door for you to get more money in while you are ahead. If you lead out too strong, your opponent may just flat call and you are stuck sweating out the turn card which may counterfeit your two pair or put a scare card on the board which slows you down. One example of this is against Jay in the lunch game. I flop trip Tens on a KTT flop. Jay has AK and position on me. I give him credit for the King based on pre-flop action. So I lead out feeling quite sure that I'm going to get popped. With the short stack nature of the lunch game, I feel that I can get him committed. Sure enough, Jay puts in a "let's clarify where we stand" raise. I push and for not that much more Jay calls off the rest of his stack on a two outer (which he hit but we are not ROT here). Now if I had check/raised there, Jay has much less invested, can reasonably fear that I have a Ten of some sort, and can get away from the hand.

So bottom line is, if you know your opponent feels they are strong and ahead, a lead-out/re-raise will get more money into the pot faster and will be more likely to get an opponent pot committed than a check/raise which can scare off customers.