RESULTS
This hand was one of the toughest spots I've been in in a long time and I spent a lot of time thinking about this hand since. I'm glad everyone else did too.
Alright, so we know that Villian is solid. That means that his raising range here is aces down to AJ, and pairs down to maybe 77? Probably more like 88. I will discount AT because of my hand hand because he is solid.
Ok, we call and the flop comes unders. Now, if I donkbet him he is probably going to stay in with any pair and fold with most overs with the possible exception of AK. However if I check to him he likely will bet with pretty much anything he raised with, so his flop bet doesn't really narrow his range much; I don't know whether he's the type to c-bet yet. So I call to extract more value out of overs that might bet the turn again and because I'm still not sure which pairs he would raise with.
Alright, the Q hits the turn. If he had AQ he is now ahead, if he had QQ he already was ahead. If he has a pair he may be afraid that I called the flop bet with overs. However the only hand he might have that beats me that folds if I bet is JJ, and I might get a fold out of the hands that I have crushed. So I check again, intending to call a bet. He checks behind. This means: he may have QQ, and is now slowplaying his set. He does not have AQ, KK, or AA. He may have a passively played JJ, a smaller pair that is worried that I have a bigger pair or a donkishly played AQ, or AK.
So on the river, the K hits. Now AK is beating me, most hands than I beat are probably afraid of the two overs. The only possible reason to bet here is to try to get JJ to fold.
Which, of course, is what he had, which I found out after he checked behind.
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