Betting When Only Better Hands Call

I'm posting this hand for 3 reasons:

1) It shows how chat can sometimes be useful to get a virrain to show
2) This virrain played his hand particularly poorly, and:
3) The virrain didn't understand why his play was so bad, because his analysis was too results-based.

Seat 1: Villain 1 ($119.35)
Seat 2: Villain 2 ($53.40)
Seat 3: Villain 3 ($18.50)
Seat 4: Hero ($127.50) -
Seat 5: Villain 4 ($17.50) -
Seat 6: Villain 5 ($100) -
Seat 7: Villain 6 ($40) Sitting Out
Seat 8: Villain 7 ($162.55)
Seat 9: Villain 8 ($104.85)

PRE-FLOP:
Villain 4 posts small blind $0.50
Villain 5 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: Hero
FOLD Villain 7
CALL Villain 8 ($1)
FOLD Villain 1
CALL Villain 2 ($1)
FOLD Villain 3
RAISE Hero ($4.50) - (pretty standard raise with AJo on the button)
FOLD Villain 4
FOLD Villain 5
CALL Villain 8 ($3.50) - (I'm definitely not unhappy with this call. It's a profitable situation for me to be in the betting lead and in position.)
FOLD Villain 2
FLOP: Pot: $11.5
CHECK Villain 8
BET Hero ($8) - (Scary looking board and I hit none of it. Virrain could definitely have been limp-calling with a small pocket pair and have just hit a set. But my hand has very little showdown value, and I'd hate to let him end up winning the pot with AQ-high, A4s, or some crap like that. So I'll go ahead and bet and see if he's interested in the pot.)
CALL Villain 8 ($8) - (Looks like he is.)
TURN: Pot: $27.5
CHECK Villain 8
BET Hero ($20) - (This is just too good a card to bluff for me to check behind on it. He'd have to fold his pair-and-straight-draw hands, here like 77 or 76s. The fact that it was the 4 on the flop that was a non-spade means he's pretty unlikely to have had a pair and a flush draw and now made a flush, unless he started with A4ss, which is unlikely just because it's one exact hand. He'd have to fold 88-QQ as well. So I'm betting this card pretty much every time. If he calls here, I'm probably done putting money into the pot.)
CALL Villain 8 ($20) - (Looks like he's gonna win this hand.)
RIVER: Pot: $67.5
BET Villain 8 ($72.35) - (Obviously I'm folding. I have nothing. But this is a really weird play. His shove is very weak. I don't see him open shoving with AA and the A of spades. It's pretty hard to see him getting to the river with AK and the A of spades or QQ and the Q of spades. I think he probably flopped a set or made a low flush on the turn, and is now just frustrated about the fourth spade on the board. But I don't want him to think that I was just bs'ing the whole way down, so I tank for a little bit, and chat in "nice catch" before folding. I usually really try to stay away from the chat box because it's a recipe for tilt, but often in these kinds of situations you can goad your opponent into showing by intimating that he luck-boxed into a good hand on the river. He will be dying to show you that he actually had you the whole way, and you'll get information about his play that you wouldn't have otherwise had.)
FOLD Hero
UNCALLED Villain 8 ($72.35)
Villain 8:
Villain 8 collected $64.5 from main pot

As you can see, he did in fact show after I folded, and it turns out he turned a set of Kings after slowplaying before and on the flop. I'm not a huge fan of his slowplays on earlier streets, but I guess you could make an argument for it. His shove on the river, however, is unequivocally a really bad play.

When you bet, particularly on the river, you want to be either folding out hands that are better than yours, or getting called by hands that are worse. I MIGHT fold a pair of sevens or eights with a spade included here, and I could have had the same flop and turn actions with those hands. I would definitely fold the nut straight here, but I wouldn't always be raising with 78 preflop. It would have to be suited for sure, so that's only 4 hands. So there are a few hands that he's losing to that he'd fold out. But not many. I'd certainly be calling here with the nuts, which I could easily have, certainly with QQ and the Q of Spades, probably even if I had the J of spades, because, as I said, I felt his shove was weak. But he's DEFINITELY not going to get called by a worse hand, since I'm not calling without a flush. I'm folding all lower sets, AK, AA, anything that could lose to him.

Basically, he decided that he wasn't folding the hand, so in order to deter me from bluffing and putting him to a tough decision, he decided to just shove it all in. Deciding not to fold isn't necessarily a terrible decision, but if you're gonna get it in, you might as well try and get it in against the hands you beat, as well as the hands you lose to. By shoving, he gets it in ONLY against the hands he's losing to. If he checks, I probably check back, and he wins the EXACT same amount as when he shoves and I fold. He also doesn't get to see that I was bluffing the whole way, which should be of some value. I might even check down some hands that I would have called his shove with, like JJ with the J of spades. In that case, he loses less than he does when he shoves and I call.

I MIGHT try a big bluff on the river. He's scared of this happening, and that's why he shoves. But if he calls that bet EVERY time, he's doing better than if he shoves every time, because some of the times that I bet, he'll win. Whereas if he shoves and I call, he loses every time. So the next time you're in a situation where you know your hand is marginal, but you know you're not going to fold it, check and call rather than open shove. You'll get it in vs. the nuts just as often, but you'll get it in vs. air more often, which is what you want.

The last thing I want to talk about is the way he analyzed the hand. Of course after he showed KK I gave him an "lol" for making such a dumb bet. He explained his rationale as, "I knew you didn't have anything, so I just shoved. It was obviously the right play, since you folded." First of all, he doesn't know I didn't have anything, since I could easily have AA with the A of spades, QQ with Q of spades, Ax with A of spades, or any number of other hands with a big spade in them. Second of all, the fact that I folded doesn't mean it was the right play to shove. Again, if he checks and I check, he wins the exact same amount as when he shoves and I fold. The way to evaluate a play isn't to look at whether you won the hand or not. I could open shove preflop every hand and probably win 75% of them. Doesn't mean it's a good idea. The way to evaluate a strategy is to figure out what its EV is, given the range of hands that your opponent could have. On those terms, this virrain's pray is pretty much the nut low.

BRUECHIPS