Bait for a call?

[Munga30]

I had an interesting situation in a home game with an unknown player chatting at me. I was wondering what you think his chatter means.

I'll describe the entire game in order to defelect some criticism from my actual play. I'm more interested in the chatter part of the hand, but comment on anything if you like.

Friendly home game - $0.25 to $2 spread limit with a $0.25 ante for just about all games - with six players. I'm the dealer and call Holdem. Everyone antes and the cards are dealt. UTG (the unknown chatter) opens for $0.25 and everyone calls to me. I call with 84 and deal the flop - 8 5 3 rainbow. $3 in the pot.

Everyone checks to me and I bet the max $2, slapping the chips into the table. UTG says "Did you see that?" and calls. Everyone else folds. $7 in the pot. I have no idea how much of the flop he caught, but let's see what happens.

Turn is a J, UTG checks, and I bet $2, this time without slapping the chips. UTG calls with a confident "I'll call. I'm not sure what you have, but I have a pretty good hand."

I can't remember exactly what the river was, but I think it was an A. He checks again and I check behind.

My question is, based on his comments, should I have bet the river and hoped to make him fold, or was he calling no matter what?

He shows 53 for bottom 2 pair and I muck. "Know-it-all" to my right says, "I knew you had nothing."

Sigh.

[Al Schoonmaker]

With bottom two pair he should have check-raised you on the flop to knock out players.

The only way you could have gotten him out on the river was to pull out a gun and say, "Fold or I'll blow you away."

Al