Villian raises preflop and you call in the BB with 98s for example. The flop comes T42 rainbow and the Villian checks. You check behind. The turn pairs the board, making it TT42. The Villian again checks, and from here the hand can go one of two ways.
Path 1: You bet the pot and the Villian folds his high cards. This way has a slightly higher risk factor with a lower success rate as you will need to bet a substantial amount else the Villian may call with overs. Also the Villian may have flopped a monster and is slowplaying it, but a lot of the time you'll take down the pot here.
Path 2: You check behind on the turn and the river brings another blank, say a 5 making the board TT425. The villian now checks again. You can pretty much guarantee that he has A-high here and is looking for a cheap showdown. If he had hit the flop he most likely would've bet by now trying to extract chips. Conversely, if he had nothing but a low pocket pair or JQs or even SCs lower than yours, he would've bluffed at the pot with a continuation bet most of the time. So make a fairly big bet here, big enough that there's almost no way that the Villian will call you with ace high unless he has a specific read.
I prefer taking path 2 here as it has had an almost 100% success rate for me and the only times I get called is when the Villian hits his kicker on the river or something. Now of course this won't work on all opponents but it's not hard to pick up who it will work on and who it won't work on, and once you've done this it's practically free chips for the rest of the life of the opponent at a table you're on.
The pyschology behind this play from the mind of the Villian is that he has a strong hand, say AK or AQ unimproved, however he doesn't want to commit anymore chips to the pot so they will try to get to a cheap showdown. It is usually apparent when the tournament is approaching the bubble and players aren't too weak as to limp AK, AQ, AQ preflop but they are weak enough to check it down without even as much as a continuation bet as it might cost them as much as half their stack when they have no idea of your holding. Once they check the flop, there's even less chance that they'll bet the turn unimproved and if they check there, they'll check the river, which is when you can come in with a nice sized bet and since they've shown they're weak they'll most probably be laying down the hand and cursing their luck.
Of course you can make this play after the flop but you have to be very sure that they have what they have, high cards, and that they can lay them down when faced with a dismal flop to their hand.
Thoughts on this anyone? It's definitely something that comes second hand to me now and I find myself betting to their checks more and more, but when I first started out with tournament style play I would check it to the river and lose to ace high a lot of the time. I hope somebody can get some use out of this play
