A check-raise in poker is a common deceptive play in which a player checks early in a betting round, hoping someone else will open.
Of course, if no other player chooses to open, the betting will be checked around and the play will have failed to elicit additional money for the pot.
In online poker games special tracking software can be used to determine the exact percentage of times a player check-raised when they had the opportunity.
This information helps to determine if a player who check-raised has a monster hand or is bluffing as part of their routine poker play.
In Super/System, Doyle Brunson claims to check-raise very rarely in no-limit hold 'em; he contends that it is more profitable to simply bet a quality hand, regardless of whether his opponent will try to bluff.