A tough decision

[Village Idiot]

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Why not bet the flop after he checks ahead of you to find out where you are ?
I think there may be a chance if he does have trips that he raises fearing a straight draw or that you have hit two pair and are drawing to a boat.

Just checkig behind tells you nothing IMO.

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1. What actions that he can take will give you information about where you are in the hand.

2. What is so important about knowing "where you are in the hand." I'm genuinely curious if there is a reason as opposed to throwing around a catchy phrase you heard someone use once.

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1. If I bet the flop and he raises me then at this level of play I'm done with the hand this early in the game.
Making a bet of about 1/2 the pot here either gets Villain to
Fold
Call
Raise

If he folds great.
If he calls, then you still have info. that Villain thinks he is ahead or has a draw to enough outs to call your bet.
If he raises I'm thinking I'm beat and will lay it down saving me more chips than calling down to the river might cost.
This early in a $22 I assume Villain is a decent tight player unless he prved otherwise in the 1st hand.
While checking gives you the free card chance to hit one of your outs to improve your hand the odds of that aren't great here IMO.

2. I want to either take this down right here with TPTK or give Villain a chance to make a mistake by calling my bet if I'm ahead.
Here Villain has shown weakness by checking.
I want to make a bet and get him to react to try to determine if I'm really ahead or he was trapping and looking for a check/raise.