How many times have you been asked that question? How many times have you seen it asked at the table? And how many times have you asked that yourself?
Here's the outrage:
I've put out a strong raise pre-flop, made a strong continuation bet after the flop and pushed all in on the turn. I must have a pretty good hand, right? Well, I don't. I was bluffing. At best, I have a draw. But you can't know that, right? And when you click call and flip over top pair, top kicker, it's time for me to ask the question.
I think I'm getting tired of hearing it. Isn't it just a little bit possible that I've developed a betting pattern that easy to spot. Isn't it possible that that particular opponent knows that I play my strong hands soft and my weak hands strong?
I'm seeing a growing trend of people who are personally offended when their opponent reads them correctly. It doesn't matter if your opponent was ahead when all the money went into the pot, it's that there's NO WAY he could honestly believe he was ahead, so it must have been a bad call on his part.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but one of the first things I had to do to grow as a player was to stop assuming my opponent held monsters every time they bet like they did. Just as they're reading you, you have to read them, and trust those reads. Sometimes they'll be wrong and sometimes you'll be wrong.
Bottom line: I have a hard time believing it's ever a bad call if the person making the call is ahead when the money goes into the pot. Just because you're representing more than you have doesn't mean I have to believe it.