Had an interesting hand yesterday where I maybe should have made a big hero fold based on a combination of bet-sizing and behavior.
It's live $5-10. There's an UTG limp (from a guy who is known for limping big pairs first-in). The guy UTG+1, who is usually loose-passive, not often aggressive, and who has only $600 to start, makes it $30. The sizing is very reliable weakness from this guy; I'd usually expect to see hands like AQ, AJs, medium pairs. I make it $85 on button w/ QQ. SB, who's been playing pretty tight, calls after long pause (put him on JJ or TT), and the initial raiser calls.
Flop is 6-5-5 rainbow. Initial raiser checks, I bet $150 into $265. SB calls after long pause. UTG+1 starts immediately moving around and giving a speech about how he might as well put it in and he puts in $400, saving like $110 behind or something, and he jokes and says something about how he's saving the rest for cab fare home. It was super weird, and if I had thought about it a bit I could have found a fold, because if he's weak (like TT or JJ or 99, which I thought he was around and which he's capable of check-shoving on the flop) he's going to just shove it all in and is unlikely to make a speech or a weak-hand statement like that.
If you've read Verbal Poker Tells, you should know to pay attention when someone makes a statement that weakens their range, because it'll almost always turn out to be a strong hand. This is true even with joking statements like this, and the more significant the bet becomes, the more likely it is to be true. This guy's just basically never going to want to convey weakness and uncertainty when he's got a bluff or a vulnerable hand. Even if he were capable of strange reverse psychology, it's just too big a risk to say something like that that could be interpreted by an opponent as genuine uncertainty.
But my main consideration in the moment was that it was very unlikely for him to have opened so early with a 5 in his hand (esp right after a known strong UTG limper) and to call a 3-bet with a weak hand being so short, because he just hardly ever does stuff like that. I wasn't even thinking too much about how weird and obviously strong his behavior and bet-sizing seemed; all my thoughts were on just his early raise probably being medium pairs. It seemed kind of a no-brainer situation to me with him being so short. So I called without too much of a pause or thought.
So I call, the SB folds, and we put in the remaining $110 on the turn and he has 53dd for trips. Really unusual for him but he's also a weird guy who is occasionally capable of weird shit like that. I think if I had really stopped and thought about what his behavior and bet-sizing were telling me, I think his bet-sizing and speech would have together convinced me to hero-fold here. Not saying that that would be an easy fold, considering how shallow we are, but I do think it's super-unlikely that he'd be doing this without a very strong hand.
There's an interesting discussion on this 2+2 thread I made about this hand. We discuss how sure you'd have to be to fold this hand, considering how shallow stacks are: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/246/poker-tells-behavior-hosted-zachary-elwood/live-5-10-bet-sizing-weak-hand-statement-1587724/