I really am supposed to go broke

[SplawnDarts]

Not sure I follow. You made a very convincing argument your opponent held AA. If that was your reasoning at the table, then your conclusion has to be that you're WB and need to check/fold. Which is what you did.

There are lots of situations where people say you "ought" to go broke, but very frequently they're wrong. There's no benefit to going broke here - it's straight up -EV.

You should be thrilled this guy gave you two free shots to hit your 2-outer. By playing it right you turned a 92% chance you go broke into a 8% chance you bust him. That's f'n great, not cause for alarm.

[Bet-and-win88]

I simply mean, that I'm not sure it was played correctly. I followed my gut instincts and some not really proven reads and play check/fold on the turn and river with the second best hand. Next time I am wrong and it costs me a lot of money not to bet for value down the road with these hands. So I'm not sure if a good gut instincts can compensate these losses.

[KinkyKid]

The weird part about this hand is that the guy with AA, who supposedly knew you played very tightly, puts you on having a five in your hand. Which is a little weird. Thats the only reason I can see for his god awful checks on turn and river. Or you made the hand up to look good to an internet forum, and then put it in the one place you wouldn't be laughed out of. I think you should go tell BBV about your read.

[SplawnDarts]

[ QUOTE ]
I simply mean, that I'm not sure it was played correctly. I followed my gut instincts and some not really proven reads and play check/fold on the turn and river with the second best hand. Next time I am wrong and it costs me a lot of money not to bet for value down the road with these hands. So I'm not sure if a good gut instincts can compensate these losses.

[/ QUOTE ]

What you've basically getting at is the two fundamental lines of thinking winning players employ.

The first is to be an averager. This is the method Harrington advocates (since you mentioned him). It relies heavily on hand range math and generally doesn't try to excessively narrow that range. It tends to make lots of "uncertainty calls" and presumed value bets in uncertain circumstances.

The second line of thinking to be a detective - trying to narrow the range of possible hands down as far as possible by logical deduction, and if that still leaves you with a questionable decision, look for additional (thin) information to bias it one way or the other. This line of thinking relies heavily on reads and player history because there's almost never enough info in the betting to definitely determine what your opponent has.

The play you made was fundamentally a detective play, and a VERY good one, but it seems like you wished you had made the averager play and bet the turn (and maybe river).

I think that's the exact wrong mental road to take. Most top players are detectives, not averagers. I am as well, although I'm not a top tier player. I believe the detective approach is fundamentally stronger because when you get the right info you can make absolutely sick plays. However, sometimes there's just not enough info to be a detective, and that's where averaging still has value.

I know you're upset about this hand for some reason, but I think it's a good candidate for a "When I knew I could play" hand.