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Very good of you to put yourself out there and post these. I know we will all have different takes on it though and have differing opinions and any different suggestions deviating from the line taken, by myself at least, are purely for the point of discussion and certainly not intended to criticise.
Loving the thread and looking forward to the subsequent hands, some excellent discussion!
Obviously there are some spots though where there is clearly a wrong decision. eg. Opening 72o UTG will almost always be a mistake.
I'm interested to what you think about my suggestion about varying your raise size pre for this spot you had. Looking forward to hand 3
However, this is of course impossible to know. We can't know everything. But still, with the information that we can reasonably acquire, there should still be an optimal response, right? It still isn't simple by any stretch of the imagination to do, but if we think villain does X, then it is possible to know Y is the optimal response, rather than Z. So, perhaps what you're arguing is 'we think differently, so there is no right or wrong', and while that's true, we do think differently, it doesn't mean there's not a right play, if we agree that 'right' simply means the move that results in the most profit.
Cliffs: Every single poker spot has an optimal response, and therefore there is a right and wrong move. However, it's impossible for humans to always respond optimally.
For example... Your above equation does hold true but has many layers. If we know the opponent will do 'X' which therefore means 'Y' is the correct play rather than 'Z', well that is all great. The point it gets tricky is when the opponent knows you think he will do 'X' so you will opt for 'Y' rather than 'Z' and therefore he opts to do 'A'. Now if you are smart you will incorporate this into your thought process (basically pondering your own table image and how your actions are being perceived) and can therefore round the equation back to 'you know your opponent will do 'X'... But then if your opponent is smart he will know this and opt to do 'B'. Then we have to consider if your opponent is thinking on this level and doing 'A' or 'B' or if he is just doing 'X'.
There are just so many layers that it is hard to reduce poker to the simple equation above (hence there are not as of yet an army of Phil Ivey/Daniel Negreanu/whoever bots crushing poker on the internet). If bots were made that followed the perceived 'optimal' mathematical line in every hand they 'may' do okay at lower stakes but at high stakes versus the best players they would be destroyed.
It is also hard to factor in things like whether the opponent is steaming from losing a previous hand etc.
a) enable you to gain greater value later on in the hand
Phil Galfond is obsessed with balance and when watching some his videos, he constantly makes the point that there's very few situations he gets in where he would always do X or always do Y and I think he's right with that.
However, for situations where you are in a relative vacuum (eg. Early in a ive tournaments with unknowns or after table move) then we can throw balance out the window - and as such only focus on the optimal play to do most often. Even low stakes online we can largely ignore balance for the most part. Obviously we want to be balanced with some aspects, but there are many situations where it doesn't matter you are balanced since your opponent just isn't going to be exploiting that fact.
I like check/call on the river
you're more likely to get him putting more chips in light without betting, which looks very strong. It also means you are maintaining pot control for when he has the house, which as you say is in his range.
Really enjoying the thread btw.