[Harv72b]

Given that this is a blind steal situation, I would usually have check/raised the flop. This player certainly looks aggressive enough preflop to be attempting to steal the blinds with a less than premium hand, and quite often your pair of eights/ace kicker is the best hand at that point.

River is kooky...given his aggression (is that 5 a typo? Small sample size?), you have to fear a bluff raise, so bet/fold loses some luster and check/call might actually be a better choice. But if your read isn't firm enough to really assign him that much aggression postflop, bet/fold is probably good...as you said, ace high is calling you a lot here. I could even see bet/call entering the equation if he's really as aggressive as he looks.

BTW, I see where you're coming from with the turn check/raise (that 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] is scary as hell to almost any hand he's holding), but I don't know how effective it is. He's never folding an overpair and probably not folding top pair in a HU situation, and if he's got Ace high than you already have him reverse (?) dominated. About the only time I could see you folding a better hand with this move is if he's holding 99 exactly, and even then a fair number of players will call down given the blind battle status. So basically, I think this has to be a situation where you feel you're check/raising for value, rather than as a bluff.