Hmmmm... Well, to be a bit of a devil's advocate here: I guess, first, it really depends on the table image you're trying to cultivate. I do think you're a bit more of an emotional/intuitive player than I am at times (which isn't at all a bad thing, as long as you can keep sufficient control), whereas I feel like my A-game is really just about as logically calculating as I can get.

Also, your tables may need a little "spirit" of that sort (I have real trouble livening up a dead-ish game and have kind of settled more for an attitude of just grinding away with calculated steals when the table falls into that routine).

But, at least as far as I'm concerned, upon looking at the betting sequence more carefully, I honestly don't think the all-in semi-bluff IS over the top. Given stack-depths and your signature suited connector raise, it's a rare instance where I actually would make a distinction between how I play the semi-bluff and how I play a set (which I would raise to $500 there). On the semi-bluff, I don't see how you can possibly play a missed turn (which is likely to happen), whereas with the set, you've got him pot-committed essentially with a call of $500 and can just worry about milking turn and river.

But, anyhow, I guess my main point is that I don't think even the BTPers (and I would also have been of the "fold it" school) consider the previous hand an actual ARGUMENT for folding. As I read the posts, I thought it was more like, "Well, you may have this guy beat, but I'd fold anyway." I just don't see that the previous play made the BTPers MORE inclined to fold--quite the opposite.

And that brings me back to my original tangent of what table image you want to cultivate. Well, JJ needs to lay down the first hand, of course, and played it pretty poorly. But I don't know, I really prefer to make my semi-bluffs at a table where everyone is living in fear of my big bets not because they think I'm half out of my mind (I know I'm exaggerating, but you catch my drift) but because they think/know, as a player commented tonight after I successfully bluffed a weak player off of a raised pot (I had 66, and TT didn't follow up when a K showed up; I had position), "He ALWAYS has it."

So, anyhow, I do think that if you can turn the maniac button on and off (it's regrettably just not a button I have), then it's a good weapon to have--just in the particular instance bad timing since JJ happened to be a muppet. But, I don't know, if there's a reason to turn that button on given the overall table texture, then definitely go for it!