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  Nature is full of relatively harmless critters who put up a good show in order to convince you that they are as deadly as any lion or pit viper. The frilled lizard is about as deadly as a hostess Twinkie, but when it feels threatened, it extends its frill and does its best impression of a velociraptor. Conversely, when a cobra spreads its hood most people who have spent some time watching PBS or the Animal Planet know that this is probably a good moment to pray.



  When you're stomping around in a jungle, it would probably be a good survival skill to be able to tell the difference between a cobra's hood in full display, and the one the frilled lizard tries to drive away danger with.



  This same paradigm applies to a check-raise that is done in order to scare you off, and one that is done to kill you.



  If a player in the early position holds their fire before the flop, only doing the bear minimum, and for the rest of the betting rounds only reacts to what the other players do, but springs a check-raise on the river, you can probably safely assume they believe they are holding the winning hand.



  Not only did they call every bet, but they didn't show aggression, so they were not overly interested in driving anybody out of the pot. While their opponents were shoveling money into the pot, they were just sitting back and letting it happen. The final check-raise is almost adding insult to injury.



  The other side of the coin would be a player who has showed nothing but aggression during the pre-flop and post-flop betting rounds. If at the turn or river they suddenly do a check-raise, you can almost guarantee that they are bluffing. The show of aggression before the check-raise would be inconsistent with that act. What probably happened is they had some encouraging cards before the flop, and decided to show aggression. The player is either dealing with a low pair or a drawing hand. The aggression continuing into the second round of betting means that if they have a drawing hand, it has just hit one or two more cards. But if the check-raise happens on the turn or river betting rounds, one can assume that whatever they were hoping for didn't pan out.



  Initially they wanted to get out of the round cheaply, but when somebody bet in the face of their check, that player decided a raise might scare their opponent away. In this case calling their raise, or re-raising would be the best course of action.



  Good Luck!