[M.B.E.]

Glad this has generated some controversy. I think my play was correct, but I posted this to see how many people would call me an idiot. I guess everyone is too polite to use that word?

In a nutshell, I like my bet of 2000 because it's the cheapest way to get to the river.

I figure that my opponent will fold to this flop bet well over half the time, in which case (as Tubasteve pointed out) I'm freerolling against the allin player. It's true that if I just check, my opponent might well check it through, but it's still an advantage to me to get him out of the hand when he has something like QT or K3 or a backdoor flush draw, not to mention the times that he has a 9 or 6 with a bigger kicker than mine.

But an even bigger advantage to my play is when my opponent has a small or medium pocket pair, or was paired by the board (if he's playing K5, for example). I don't expect him to fold 44 or whatever when I bet 2000, but I don't expect him to raise either. (For one thing, my smallish bet could make him suspicious that I flopped trip eights.) If I check, he would likely bet his pocket pair, or his 5, and his bet would probably be large enough (e.g. 4000) that I would have to fold. In these cases, it's great for me to be able to see a turn card for 2000 chips, rather than folding my hand to a larger bet.

Che suggested a larger bet like 3500-4000, but I tend to think that within my opponent's range, on this flop there is not much that would justify him calling 2000 but not 3500-4000.

I thought this hand was interesting because it's a situation where it's correct to bet into a dry side pot even though there's hardly any chance I am currently ahead of the allin player. (By contrast, if my holding in this situation were A3o, betting the flop would be standard because of the chance I am ahead of the allin player's holding.)