He's a good, thinking player, ben. He doesn't call OOP with 56s or J7o.
And no, a combo draw isn't the only hand in his range. All pocket pairs, some middle-higher suited connectors and other big cards are.
We're up against:
Hands we crush (22, 77, AT etc) against which we don't mind giving a free card. They'll turn their hands into bluffs which is exactly what we want.
Hands we are crushed by (straights, sets, two pair etc). We obviously want to keep the pot as small as possible s these hands.
Hands we're barely ahead of (combo draws). These are the hands we want to give exactly one free card to, and if the turn's safe, then we bet since our equity changes from barely ahead to well ahead.
Hope that helps.
EDIT: we're also well ahead of marginal draws like OESDs or FDs, both of which we sacrifice some alue by not betting, but also save ourselves from getting check-raised out of the pot. We can basically group this with the big draws, but this group is where we lose the most sklansky bucks by checking. This is the big downside to checking, but even so it still greatly outweighs the downsides of betting.
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