OK, time for me to give my thoughts.
1. Let me reiterate that the decision is close. There probably isn't a "right" or "wrong" answer here.
2. All my bets in the hand were designed to get me all-in by the river. The extra-large preflop three-bet ($12 would have been more normal), the large flop bet ($20 would have been more normal), and the large turn bet (checking behind would have been acceptable) all set me up for getting all the chips in the center by showdown. While I didn't like HOW the money got into the middle, it was what I was shooting for in the first place.
3. After the turn bet, folding the river would have been a metagame mistake. Think of it this way: I'm really announcing that I've got TPTK or better with my play in this hand. If I'm willing to throw away hands as strong as overpairs here then villain can bully me off just about anything. If I fold overpairs in this situation villain can LITERALLY call preflop/flop/turn with any two cards, push the river, and get paid off frequently enough to make the play +EV. Worse yet, a fold encourages villain to play in a tricky style against me in the future, and tricky aggressive opponents are VERY hard to play against.
4. Let's say villain was on a draw on the turn. Which draw? Did villain have AK? KQ? Q9? 98? 75? 53?
? With a board like this there are a jillion different draws that villain could have, which makes calling on a bluff-draw much more potent than usual. Aside from a monster or a superdraw, villain makes a mistake calling the turn bet IF I NEVER FOLD THE RIVER. The only way that calling the turn bet on the draw is a +EV play is if I'm going to fold to a "scare card." Why? Because
every freakin' card is a scare card. Villain could hit trips, a straight, or a flush if the river is:
Any 2 (completes the straight for 53)
Any 3 (completes the straight for 75)
Any 4 (pair turns to trips)
Any 5 (completes the straight for 87)
Any 6 (pair turns to trips)
Any 7 (completes the straight for 98)
Any 8 (completes the straight for Q9, 97, or 75)
Any 9 (completes the straight for 87 or KQ)
Any T (pair turns to trips)
Any J (pair turns to trips)
Any Q (completes the straight for 98 and AK)
Any A (overpair, two pair, or completes the straight for KQ)
So unless the K
falls on the river I'm potentially screwed. Of course, worrying about every card in the deck is seeing monsters under the bed....Assuming villain is behind (and the check/call, check/call line could certainly imply that) he's probably drawing to eight or nine outs; if I simply commit to calling any river bet I make money in the long run by playing in a way that cannot be exploited by any action on the part of my opponent. Yes, I fall prey to slowplayed monsters, but this villain doesn't act like a chronic slowplayer: sure, he checked the flop with AK in the sample hand, but he immediately led the turn. He doesn't seem the type to wait until the river and then open-push with a powerhouse hand. Betting hard preflop, on the flop, and on the turn only to fold to what LOOKS like a scare card (when virtually any card in the deck could be a scare card) is a great way to go broke in the long run. Always calling here can't be far from right, but always folding here can bankrupt you if your opponent realizes you fold the non-nuts to big river bets.
5. Have you ever heard of "tilt odds"? It's a fun little concept, and while you can EASILY overestimate its importance, it does pad the books a bit here. The idea is this: an opponent who loses a very big pot will often go on tilt, especially if he played badly. Now, if we can be sure that WE won't go on tilt for losing the big hand, we set up a very profitable next 30 hands or so by calling here -- if we win, we'll not only have a ridiculously large stack but we'll also have an opponent with 130 BBs directly on our right and steaming out his ears. That's a recipe for making even MORE money if we get lucky some time in the next few orbits. I've often seen bad players lose one big pot and promptly steam off an extra 3-4 buyins while angry. This seems like exactly the sort of opponent who would do that, and my position and potentially huge stack would make this the ideal situation to try and take advantage of it.
6. After rereading PNL, I'm really coming around on the PSR concept. After the preflop action the PSR in this hand was just about 7; against a super-loose opponent, that seems perfect for an overpair. So I decided I was committed PREFLOP. The flop, turn, and river action were just the inevitable result of that preflop decision. If my opponent makes the same decision in future hands I continue to make money from the decisions in the long run.
7. People are saying "wait for a better opportunity." Sure, once in awhile you've got 77 when your opponent has AA and you get all-in on an A77 flop, but if we wait for that we'll lose 80,000 BBs to the blinds in the meantime. Perfect situations don't come up often; we'll rarely have the nuts and when we do we'll rarely be able to manipulate our opponent into putting all his chips in the middle. The question is not whether this is the perfect opportunity to win money; the question is whether this is an opportunity to win money. I thought it was a +EV call, so I plugged my nose and put my last $133 in the middle. I didn't consider this a fist-pump call or an auto-call or an easy call; I just considered it a necessary call based on my plan for the hand. If he backdoored me, he backdoored me, but he wasn't getting the proper odds to go looking for it. If he bluffed me I made a ton of money and villain won't be bluffing me as often in the future (and will probably be steaming off an additional pile of money). If he value-bet me to death he probably thinks I'm an idiot donk table sheriff and will simultaneously fold lighter against me postflop and bluff me less often, both of which add to my winrate if I adjust my play accordingly.
As to what happened in this particular hand, it was this: