So I played $5/$5/$10 one time at the casino, just for the lulz. I bought in for the minimum ($400) because the competition looked fierce, but I managed to win a flip and get up to $900.

Hero (UTG/Straddle) - Early 20s WG, probably appears like a tight recreational player to the rest of the table. $900 stack.

Villain (BB) - Early 20s Asian kid. TAG image. Appears to be a solid winning reg. $4k stack.

SB - Late 20s WG, appears like a decent TAG reg. $1k stack.

Hero is dealt 5c 5h in UTG/Straddle

6 folds
SB limps in
Villain raises to $50
Hero calls, SB calls

Flop ($135, 3ways) is Ks 5d 3c

SB checks
Villain bets $80
Hero ???

Do we raise here for value or just flat? If we raise, we can rep a top pair hand like KJ/KQ, as well as some gutshots like 76s, A2s and A4s, and OESDs like 64s. This might induce him to get sticky with his TPGK+ hands. But if we flat, we can slowplay and hopefully induce a bit more action. Which is better?

Dry flop with no obvious draws seems like a flat imho. Definitely player dependent.

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Flop ($135, 3ways) is K53r

SB checks
Villain bets $80
Hero calls $80
SB folds

We decided to flat, since it was a dry rainbow board and we don't want to scare villain off just yet. We figured that it's very hard for villain to outdraw us and we can easily get stacks in by the river just by flatting the flop.

Turn ($295, HU) is 7c

Villain bets $180
Hero ???

We have $770 behind. 64s got there, 77 got there, but other than that, the turn didn't change too much. It did bring some draws about though: now there is a flush draw on board, as well as some gutshots.

Do we continue to slowplay, or do we jam here to deny equity from FDs and hope villain gets sticky with his KJ/KQ/AK/AA hands?

There is no such thing as denying equity. if you are ahead on the turn and your opponents range is mostly draws, you should be forcing your opponents to put more money with their draws. Jamming 150 BBs when your opponent has draws is the last thing you wanna do.

I would raise the turn here to swell the pot which allows me to jam the river and get full value. Pretty standard imo.

Given your reference he is a young TAG winning regular, I feel his range is mostly QQ+ ,AKo, AKs, maybe JJ/10-10. The 3-bet from the small blind doesn't look to be around the lower-suited connectors. Double-barrels are mostly complete air or a pretty strong hand.

To top it up how often would you encounter set over set? IMO its a pretty safe turn to raise and hope he calls with AA, AK or middle pairs and jam the river based on the river.

Call is a better option since its a dryflop. If it doesnt gets called by the small blind , you just need to raise the river since you are in position. But if it gets called by the small blind then that might indicate some draw possibilities so you can raise the turn to charge for the draws and get some value from some strong King.

Raise turn. You can more credibly bluff some backdoor hands on that card so villain can be convinced to call. Also helps the club doesn't match the king suit imo.

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raising ott to a size that's less than a jam is bad due to spr. i would just continue to flat most of the time because we're in position, protection isn't particularly worrisome, and we lack obvious bluffs besides some 76cc/A4cc type hands. we also protect our calling range, and a thinking villain should realize we will have a difficult time calling down versus 3 barrels. not to mention he can valuetown himself with worse.

After the hand, I was thinking exactly this, but I wanted to confirm it with someone else to make sure I'm not just being results-oriented. Thank you for the comment.

Results:

he was most likely double barreling on a super dry flop. He was most likely drawing dead or very thin.

Just call turn. Worst thing you can do is blow him off his hand.

Raising flop is much better than raising turn. I would of liked a turn jam with a bluffing hand like Ac4c


Think about his calling range when you jam turn. He can't call with any 1 pair hand based on your image. How many 2 pair+ hands are in his range? Almost none. He ether has you beat already with 64 / 77 or KK or you have him crushed and he cannot improve, unless he has the rare club draw or 4x or 6x and he has those combos almost never. He could also have a hand like JJ which than he even has just 5%.