[Dantes]

[ QUOTE ]
he checks, I ponder my best move, and figure maybe his most likely holding is a PP, so I bet

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Don't "think and bet". If you're going to bet bet immediatly and you should have a plan for every card or type of card one street ahead. The worst thing that can possibly happen to anyone in a poker game is to encourage people to take shots at you. Doing long pause bet with a mediocre hand is terrible unless you have the nuts and then its stupid and showboating.

[ QUOTE ]
I bet, and MP gives a little speech then says "I raise"

folds back to me, and at this point I looked back at my hand and realize I did have the A , I three-bet him, and he's not a passive player, fairly agg for this group.
He calls quick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Before the flop in every hand know exactly what the suits are for your cards so you don't have to look back unless you want to give off a reverse tell. Speech almost always = huge hand if not the nuts. On a board like this if someone did speech-raise to me I would expect to be up against a flush almost all the time.