WA/WB flop situations and the merits of checking

[Talking Poker]

I'm glad you've seen the light. I think the key factor you were missing is that the WA/WB scenario only applies when we have a MEDIUM STRENGTH (ie, second pair) hand.... a hand that if we bet the flop will get called only by hands better than ours and will fold out all the ones worse. the KK on A92 example above is a good one.

In your example, we've flopped a very strong hand (albeit not the nuts), so we need to be betting for value and building a pot. A more extreme example that will reinforce this:

We have 33. Flop comes AT3.

Now, we certainly don't have the nuts here, and chances are we are WAY ahead, but if we are behind, we are WAY behind (drawing to one out). But this is not a WA/WB example! Our hand is just far too strong, and there are a ton of worse hands villain can have that will still call if we bet. Yes, it's very unlikely he will improve to beat us, but that also has nothing to do with anything. By checking behind here, we are going to get a max a two streets of value (which I know was your plan), but that will often times cost us the third street of value, which is often equal to the first two streets of value combined!

Bet bet bet. ABC.