both hands 50/100 in a mix.

hand 1
both hero and villain are 30ish and play good and barrel a fair amount, i havent seen too many bluffs from him at showdown but im sure he bluffs now and then. not sure if he knows that i dont 3bet the BB but he'll know eventually amirite.

folds to villain otb, he raises and I defend AxKs.
flop AsTs3x i check call
turn 8s i try to check raise but he checks behind
river Qx

kind of a weird spot cuz im building my flop range to delay a lot, maybe i should be checkraising more liberally since he figures to cbet this flop 100%. i tend to avoid this strat cuz whenever I checkraise the Tx/3x/draws part of my range that seems to get incinerated. seems like he never has an ace or better unless he rivered two pair (or KJ i guess but idk). I have the spade blocker to 3bet bluff if he raises me but maybe check calling is better to enduce the times he tries to get me to fold a 3 or a T. checkraising seems silly. wondering what best river line is given the circumstances.

hand 2
I raise AKo cuttoff, BTN flat, SB 3!, BB folds.
BTN is either pro or semipro, older than me but plays good and aggro. seen him 3bet me once with Q9s in a similar situation. i would assume he has kind of a trashy hand here. SB is young biz guy prolly plays well i dont have many reads but I assume this is a AJ+99+strong broadways kinda range. I don't see this spot too often but with a 5 bet cap I'm wondering if I should be calling for balance purposes or if I should be 4betting a lot of stuff since BTN has crap.

In hand 1, I think you need to c/r this flop because you should be c/r it with a bunch of hands that aren't aces including tens flushes draws the occasional gutshot etc. plus, he checks back turn plenty

In hand 2, the button can't be that good if he cold called pre.

Hand 2: I almost never 4 bet pre 3 handed but I do in this exact situation with some hands given relative position. If we raise some flops then button gets off to cheap.

I mean, yeah, but it's all relative. Someone playing 45/20 and having some preflop leaks and making decent decisions postflop is going to be viewed in a different light as someone playing 60/5 peeling two bets. if its a "bad player" i think you have to take balance out the window and 4bet a lot of stuff and against strong players this situation never comes up. what made this interesting was BTN's range being sorta trashy but the player is by no means a fish.

Hand 1 I'm kinda on the fence I mean if your general point is we shouldn't delay Ax here then I agree but we have a ton of Ax combos to CR, AK might be fine to delay.

River I like a CR best by far

On hand one at game speed I'm probably c/r flop because I want to lead turn, i think if you hit him with the turn c/r everyone likes your flop play so I don't think waiting for the turn is bad necessarily just a bummer when he checks back.

Hand 2 I would probably 4! For a couple reasons, you get value from button and possibly sb and to see if sb will cap and lead flop or call and check flop

hand 1: prefer c/r flop but c/c is close. c/r river.

hand 2: 4bet not close for a few reasons:
a. you're solidly ahead of both ranges and want the additional 3sb in the pot
b. not a spot where 3bettor should auto-lead flop
c. you are not last to act

I think hand 1 is a pretty straight forward CR.

Hand 1. If he's aggressive, I'd xr flop intending to b/3b safe turns. Without AK in this bucket, the bucket doesn't have enough value. In the case he raises turn with AQ, AJ, A-random, draws, we gain a lot more value by expanding said bucket. Generally, I definitely like having a wider flop xr range if you're sure he's cbetting 100%. I disagree that you get incinerated the times you xr with 3x and Tx. There are times he has small SC, Kxs, Qxs, PP that hate getting xr'ed. River, I think both lines are close in EV. Obv depends how wide he calls vs how thin he vbets.

Hand 2. 4bet. 'Deception' is overrated. Only matters if people are drastically folding too much or adjusting passively too much.

I think my point was the opposite. Given that this is a button open, we should be check/raising a huge portion of our continuing range. All pairs, all flush draws, some gunshots etc. given that I think this is true, we should have Ak in this range.

It's button vs bb. Any Ax hand here is relatively strong. We will therefore have a lot of "strong" hands to CR flop unless we delay too many Ax. You don't delay anything here?

I think AxKs is a very good delay choice, as we will definitely have a profitable turn xr against this player (while a hand like A2, maybe not).

I don't think so. But I am c/r real wide.

I think I would be checkraising something like A5o all day, AxKs seemed like a good delay candidate since I figured I should have a lot of c/c hands and c/r hands on the flop and I want my c/c range to be a little stronger. I'm not sure where you draw the line but if the alternative is checkraising any piece of the flop I dunno.

I just know I tend to have a lot of trouble when I'm in this spot and checkraising flop with T8o or J3hh, so I figured it would be better to be checkcalling those but balancing by check calling some of my stronger hands.

The counter to that argument, obviously, is it makes my checkcall twice range pretty damn weak, and often in live poker I am worried about being ran over in these spots... making "internet calldowns" that are lighting money on fire live.

What else are you check calling?

Why do you guys want to check-raise river here? Is villain really going to have many hands that he will bet and then call a raise, after checking behind on the turn? I don't see what he would have that will bet and pay you off that we beat.

Betting a value hand against a competent opponent and folding it to a raise is a great way to get exploited.

I know there's no way I'm betting 2nd pair on the river at this stake planning to fold it.

So you check-raise the river just in the hopes that he has a Q in his hand?

To channel BBB: what's villains range and what will he do with each part of it? He has almost no hands that can call a bet that won't bet themselves

he could bet some airballs trying to get Tx and 3x to fold that would be folding to a river bet.

he could also be betting a fair number of Qx hands for value. those hands would be hesitant to call a river bet since i don't have many bluffs on the river after this runout.

this is personally why i prefer checking over betting out, but i do wonder how much of his range is betting on the end and how it responds to a checkraise. i tend to think i'm getting paid off by Qx less than i get "paid off" by rivered 2pair or straight. there's also the small % of the time I get 3bet by a hand that i don't think should be 3betting and now I have to decide between a stupid bluffcatch that will seemingly never win and a stupid 4 bet bluff that will seemingly never win.

my feel player logic says i should probably be delaying with a third of my 2pr and set combos and check call my stronger Tx and 3x, plus broadway draws and pocket pairs. idk how many flushdraws or Tx/3x hands should be checkraised versus check-called but i trust that it's close enough to not matter since i am not a PRO.

Not always. Sometimes I'll check this hand, but I think I'm betting more often than checking.

You're cray. Tx, 8x, PPs, 3x are all hands that can fit this description.

Is your went to showdown like 55%? look at the board runout

You said almost no hands can call a bet that won't bet themselves.

Just Tx by itself a lot of combos we can target. The rest is extra.