Is Checking It Down Really Correct?

[shipitfish]

In a low-limit satellite tournament, I recently had a player berate me for betting into a dry-ish side pot. I had raised from the button when the action folded to me and the big blind was all-in for 350 chips, less than the value of the blind (400). The antes had started, so there were 775 chips out there. The small blind was tight and even in chips with me (about 9,000). He was pretty tight and I felt he'd fold most of the time, assuming I had a hand to show down with the all-in player.

I held 23s, which (I believe) is only around 30% to win against two random cards, so the odds were about 15% against me, even if my instincts were right and the SB folded. But, I was also hoping to use the play to set something up later, as the blinds would be going up soon. Against loose players, I noticed tighter players were calling a lot of all-in bets with bad hands in this tournament, and they seemed to only need a small reason to call big preflop raises for all their chips. I was hoping to give them a reason in my case — by risking less than a BB, with some small equity to win a pot full of blinds and antes, and be “forced” to show that I'd raised with a terrible hand. I hoped it would induce action later, and the blinds were going up fast so getting called by dominated aces to double up in the next round would be a big help.

I was not too happy when the SB called the 775 bet, making the main pot 1,475 and the side pot 850. The flop was QJ2 with a two-flush and the SB checked. I really felt I had the best hand at this point. Given what I'd seen of this player, he would have bet out with either a Q or J; he had not check-raised once since we'd started the tournament. I decided to make a feeler bet of 500. If he called, I was wrong on my read and he had likely a J. I would then have five outs on the turn to win, and I might get a free river card, too. Betting 500 to win 2,325 therefore seemed right to me here.

My 2 was good, he folded, and it beat the all-in player. His anger was focused in the argument was that it helped me more to check it down than it did to bet, because it was the best shot to “eliminate a player”. I thought a lot about this argument and I don't buy it. We were still seven seats from the money, and one more player with an emergency stack wasn't going to change much. I theorize that the player was more angry that he would have hit a pair on the turn or river (although he never said specifically what he had).

I know my preflop raise was very questionable, and that its primary value was to have the better players at the table see me as a “loose raiser” and get action as a favorite (with weak King-highs, for example) when I would inevitably move all-in within the next 20 minutes. But, was it so questionable that I should have just folded and let the SB call and show down with the all-in player? And, was my bet on the flop a suicide bet? Is he right, is checking down right? (If he was right, it was for the wrong reason, of course.)

I've read a lot lately that seems to indicate that game theoretically, bluffing into a dry(-ish) side pot can often be a correct play. Am I taking that too far, though?

As it turned out the ploy seems to have worked. I got called all-in preflop holding QQ about 20 minutes later by a very tight player (who had earlier joined the discussion of my “bad play”). However, he knocked me out when he flopped an ace.

But, being careful not to assume I'd done the right thing, I should ask the question if I did. What do you think?