Foxwoods 5-5 NL hand

[mikech]

Since this was a live game I'm not sure if I recall the details exactly right, but they should be close enough.

I bought in for $400, the game's pretty loose and I guess I loosened up along with it, so by the time this hand occurred I had been whittled down to about $225. I'm dealt QJdiamonds in MP, there's a raise to $15 in front of me, and I call. The button re-raises $35 more, the blinds fold, the original raiser calls, and I call as well. The button had over 1k at the table and was very aggressive, raising often and not necessarily with much of anything. The flop comes J-8-6, all hearts. EP checks in front of me, but before I can act, the button bets $100 and EP folds. A player not in the hand points out that the bet (and subsequent fold) was out of turn. The dealer makes the button retrieve his bet, and after thinking about it, I decide I have the best hand and push all-in for the $175 or so I have left. Then the button says, "Why would you do that? I was stabbing at the pot with a small pocket pair. Now I almost feel guilty for folding" and folds. I asked if he had a heart and he said no. Of course I take his comments with a grain of salt, but the possibility of him telling the truth would actually be consistent with the way the hand played out.

So, how bad was my play? Forget the loose preflop call, I felt the table was loose and I might very well have had the best starting hand. I'm more questioning my decision to move in after his out-of-turn bet. My stack was just about the size of the pot at that point, I didn't think he could beat top pair yet, but I thought he might've had one or more overcards with a heart, making us about a coinflip to win the hand. Knowing he was going to bet, should I have checked and raised all-in, or just move in like I did? His fold was unexpected, I honestly thought we were just going to show our cards down and run it.