How Could You call with Third Pair?

So a guy bets on the turn, I call. He bets on the river, I call. I show third pair and he throws away a busted straight draw.

The message comes on the chat box: ‘You called with third pair?’

Yep.

I called because his betting didn’t make sense.

I’m in the BB with K8 unsuited. He limps in from middle position along with two others. Now this is a pretty aggressive cat. I’ve seen him raise from early position with any Ace, any two big cards. If he hits a monster on the flop he’ll slow play. Otherwise, he’ll bet out with any high or second pair, a flush or straight draw, or even a second pair bad kicker.

So the flop pops 782 Rainbow. I bet, my guy calls and everybody else folds. The turn is an Ace and a fourth suit. I check and my guy makes a pot sized bet. Now this makes no sense to me. This guy is pretty predictable. I can’t put him on an Ace and there are no flush draws. He might be betting into my weakness. There is a very slight possibility he’s holding 78 and two pair. If he had maybe a 9T for a straight draw he would have bet or raised me on the flop.. Or he could be running a naked bluff. I call, trying to see what the river holds. Out pops a Q. I hated that card. Now my guy makes a bet half the size of the pot.

Again, curious. That´s a small river bet for this yahoo. It could either be he has a monster hand… trips? No, he´d go all in with that. Now I’m sure he doesn’t have an Ace, he’s the type to go all in at this point with top pair. He might have the 78 or he might have played along with a Q, or a Q7 for all I know, and got lucky at the river. But I also feel he’s quite likely running a bluff with a busted straight draw and is trying to bully me off the hand. I decide information was important here so I call. He shows 9J for a busted gutshot straight draw! Well, my third pair takes it down.

It was a hand I was expecting to lose when I called. But while calling in that situation is normally a bad move, I called because his betting made no sense to me. I had a hunch, from his frequent and aggressive betting prior to this, that he was running a lot of naked bluffs. I couldn’t put him on a hand, which suggested to me he DIDN’T have a hand. Indeed he didn’t.

I had his number from then on. He was still very active and aggressive. I actually became tighter, making sure I was going in with only good hands and continued only when I had a good flop. It ended up a nice win.