Villian: Strongest player at the table. The type to raise a scary turn card and then fold to a donk on the river from a fish. No real history but hero earlier won a 100BB pot against villian's top set. Villian was in SB, Hero in BB had DS Q875, villian bet, hero raised, villian reraised and hero flatted. Villian flopped top set with AKKQ and hero flopped bottom pair with flush draw and gut shot. Got it in on the flop and hero hit a spade.

Onto the hand: Villian ($880) opens to $15, hero on button pots to $52.50 with AAK5 ds.

Flop: $112.50, Q-10-3 rainbow. Villian checks, Hero checks to pot control.

Turn: Turn comes 5d, giving Hero bottom pair and NFD along with the gutshot to broadway and overpair. Villian pots for $109.5, hero calls.

River: comes 8s, completing the j-9 straight, villian bets $220. Hero folds.

Did hero play the hand ok or should hero have been more aggressive on the flop or turn?

Do you have both backdoor flushes on flop? If you do, xr is often correct.

As played I like a turn lead and think river fold is ok, 8 is one of the worst cards for us.

Good hand for discussion.

Yes, I do. Is that something I should take into account regarding betting or checking the flop?

Against someone this active, I like bet-calling the flop, and consider a hero call on the river.

We're in position.

Yes. It adds like 5% nut equity to your hand and makes a lot of turns playable.

Oops, with position just cbet - smaller sizes good with our range advantage.

Turn call is fine.

River can go either way depending on how villain perceives your range - if he thinks it is too tight/unbalanced villain can bluff more.

Question, since I have both backdoor flush draws, are you saying:

1) I should make my flop action a bet? if so, would you always bet pot, since this flop hits a lot of draws? and do you call a check raise?

2) Or are you saying checking is good and I should save my bet folds for the times I have aces without both backdoor draws and therefore checking the flop was fine since I had both backdoor draws?

Bet flop all day. Especially when u have two bdfd. In the end we have range advantage here. Villain has hands that just cf all day like low rundown, pairs etc. If u check aces here, then u basically only bet sets and wraps I guess?

Bet flop half pot imo. Pretty sure solver says the same. Even vs cr we can call and stack off on turn cards which give us the fd. Against qtxx on these turns we will have enough eq to call ai.

In general Hand plays much better if we bet imo.

Ok thanks. Can you give me a quick rundown on how you play aces in general? what kind of flops are you betting (and how much) and what kind are you checking behind and giving up?

I don't think this is a good candidate to bet on the flop - we're in a bad spot when we get check raised, and we have good coverage going to the turn.

sry but that would be way to advanced and take too much time. Also i would basically give away hours and hours of my own work in monker solver, if i would give you a detailed list. Its also not that i have that list right away on hand.

in general i would say anytime you have additional eq like here the gs AND good turn playability, here 2 bdfd, you should/could bet. Also tbh the board is not that scary, youre only beat by QT, 33, QQ, TT, basically. Also if villain has a high card wrap like KJA or smt like that, youre blocking his EQ a LOT. So betting, and maybe getting a raise by a hand like QKJx isnt there worst outcome!

i dont think that the ev of checking is so much worse then betting, but still should be bigger.

Without the bdfds i would prob check. I think thats a good approach without knowing exact solver solution.

don't think this board texture is THAT great a one versus a strong player to bet especially with this SPR. Despite having the extra equity we are at risk of putting in a LOT of money behind if we just call down check-raises and call off the remaining 100BB on the turn.

I think i bet flop more often then I check.

I don't know another way to play the hand after you check flop. This has to be the worst bluff catcher on the river from a card removal point of view but maybe you just don't show up w/ many bluff catchers given your line is why people are saying to call. Seems like a range construction mistake if you call river here IMO but probably why this hand is a bet flop a large % of the time.

constructing betting ranges entirely off of what happens when you get check raised is usually not accurate. I don't even think it's that bad if you get c/r but even if it is that is not the only decision tree. If villian only c/r OOP obviously I'd alter my strategy as other lines are better then that tree. This is an example of a hand that plays very well vs c/c and is difficult to balance ranges on almost every runout if you check back flop with all these type of hands so this is a good candidate to bet. I think you vastly overestimate the EV of checking and underestimate how detrimental it is to range construction later.