I play casually with four of my friends, all getting into poker at the same time and we help each other out with emerging poker strategy, all of us learning together for a better game. We rarely gamble other than our monthly £10 tournament, but we play for fun with an imaginary bankroll to track our total ups and downs each night.

One of my friends has a habit of folding right away instead of checking post-flop."Nope!", "No way", "Get outta here!". I am always a bit perplexed as to why he would throw away equity instead of checking and seeing the rest of the community cards or how the rest of us play it out. What if everyone else has nothing? What if you hit a card where you can semi-bluff? Surely it's always worth checking instead of folding right away. It felt like bad poker or fancy-play syndrome.

When asked later why he folds instead of checking, he said it was putting up the image that he only plays with hands that he can play so he can bluff easier when he has to.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced this when you first got into poker?

Its not normally a good Idea to fold when you can see a flop or any street for free. but I do and use to do it more than now. and I just don't want to get stuck with a 93o in BB and flop a 993 and someone with pocket10 or better hit a better full on turn or river. it has happen so I rather fold to prevent a bad beat. also lets your opponents know you are only going to play good cards so beware. this actually works for me very well in heads up. ill fold fold fold not caring the blinds. and only there to take your chips on my terms.

and that's also true, you can set up an image that can help you in the future and make it easier for you to bluff if you are not getting any cards.

Yes, folding when you aren't being asked to contribute to the pot in a hand is never a good idea. Still, him throwing away equity is good for everyone else at the table.
Exploit. Adapt. Overcome.

Originally Posted by Spannerdeth

I play casually with four of my friends, all getting into poker at the same time and we help each other out with emerging poker strategy, all of us learning together for a better game. We rarely gamble other than our monthly £10 tournament, but we play for fun with an imaginary bankroll to track our total ups and downs each night.

One of my friends has a habit of folding right away instead of checking post-flop."Nope!", "No way", "Get outta here!". I am always a bit perplexed as to why he would throw away equity instead of checking and seeing the rest of the community cards or how the rest of us play it out. What if everyone else has nothing? What if you hit a card where you can semi-bluff? Surely it's always worth checking instead of folding right away. It felt like bad poker or fancy-play syndrome.

When asked later why he folds instead of checking, he said it was putting up the image that he only plays with hands that he can play so he can bluff easier when he has to.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced this when you first got into poker?

Lol, that's pretty funny.

I never really see the strategic value in doing this, I think it's just short sighted for someone to do this.

I think that you are thinking about it the right way my friend!

That seems daft. There are better ways to create a tight image than giving up free equity!

I also play with a bunch of friends and have came accross a similar situation, but it's usually at the river that this happens, and only when I have not contributed very little or nothing to the pot.
So it's like, I get like 2 3 offsuit on the BB, 5 guys limp into the pot, hand gets checked down all until the river. I don't hit anything, small blind checks, and I say something like: "well, I've been in this situation before and I know exactly what to do here" and I just fold. Everybody cracks up for a bit.
If I were playing online, be it tournament or cash game, I would just check instead of fold, but since I'm with friends, to create some distraction I just fold and resign the pot.

Interesting idea but doubt it would work. Wow much has he lost just folding there would be interesting if it could be figured out.

I'm not sure why your friend applies that custom. Even if it is a fun game or with little money, it is not reason enough to destroy our initial range of hands. Because that means that your friend enters the boat with a lot of trash hands. If he can't use disconnected hands he shouldn't use them preflop. Otherwise this is a ridiculous way to play IMHO and you should not imitate any player who makes these kinds of absurd moves, that will lead to nothing good in the long run.
Greetings.

To give your friend some credit, he clearly is working on trying to find ways to develop an image. But I doubt the ever so slight boost to his portrayal of a tight image, would make up for all the times he folds these where he would have gotten a lucky run out and scooped a pot, or the board runs out such that it's a chopped pot.

Seems like he is buying lottery tickets and not bothering to scratch them. I will say its a much sounder strategy than limping to sitters.