I suck at deepstack, but I'm totally cool with the flop check for OPs pot control reasoning as well as these reasons.

GcluelessdeepstacknoobG

Another great example of over betting for value. Well played, villain.

Bet the flop. Worry about hand domination if and when you make it to a further street. If they are folding to your flop bet then start bluffing more.

Yes

KK a pretty clear WA/WB situation, no?

I could see more arguments for betting as the pocket pairs get smaller / more vulnerable to turn cards (such as TT).

GcluelessdeepstacknoobG

I wish I could say this was true, but the fact is that for better or worse I had decided to call river when I called turn and I was just moaning and complaining on the river. I figured that I was beat a lot of the time but I have seen way too many ridiculous things at Harrah's to ever fold to bluffy looking bets from an unknown young Asian. If I was going to fold I would have folded the turn, which is what I would have done with 99% of my hands that I am checking flop with. Just unfortunate that I happened to have one of the only strong hands I check the flop with and he happened to soul read me for something that could call two overbets and was good enough to play it for max value. Hats off to him really. In a vacuum I'm not sure he made the most +EV play, but certainly against me as an opponent he made a brilliant play.

I remember the last time I saw someone shove $600 in a 1/3 game as a bluff...or wait...no I don't because it never happens.

Let's just say that we play in different card rooms and leave it at that. 1-2 times a month I have a session that includes a total whale who is willing to put in $500-$1k preflop without looking at his cards. I can't count the number of large bluffs I've seen in the last year, this would be far from the strangest.

I literally just an hour or so ago caught someone bluffing off $850 with nothing at 1/3NL.

There was a $450+ river bet with 4x on like a 54333 board I saw a few weeks ago, so whatever you wanna call that (it was easliy $600+ if you count his flop and turn overbets).

I've definitely caught people overbet bluffing like $200 into ~$150 pots too many times to count, though I realize that's different.

Hard to say what people always have in a certain situation if you never call in that situation.

And obviously if you go based off of hands posted around here, then OP's hand is never gonna be good because people never second guess themselves when they make a correct hero call, they just assume they're the best player ever and dwell on other hands.