villain is an Asian kid who is probably about 30, I think I've only played with him one time before this and he's hasn't gotten too out of control from what I can recall.
This hand was fairly early into the session and nothing out of the ordinary has happened

Not sure how villain sees me, no real history

villain 2 is an older Asian man who is very passive

1/2 NL 7 handed
The max pot limit is $800

MP: hero ($400+)
MP: villain 2 ($400+)
BB villain ($300+)

preflop, several limps, hero calls with 9T, call, BB makes it $14 total, folds to hero who calls, villain 2 calls. 3 of us, I'm second to last to act

flop: ($50)Q86
villain bets $20, hero calls, villain 2 calls

turn: ($110)Q86A
villain checks, hero bets $55, villain 2 folds, villain calls

river: ($220)Q86A5
villain checks, hero bets $125


thoughts on this without having any really good reads or history with villain?

Both of those cards are bad cards to bluff at. You're repping an ace on the turn and then at least a really big ace on the river and it makes your story inconsistent because you limped in instead of squeezing and then called a 3bet instead of re-raising.

Unless you have an image of a tight/passive player who can limp/call with big broadways you are basically only repping a set which is a vary narrow range.

You say villain seems decent, and likely at least somewhat aware, your play PF would put your range on medium-small PP's and SC's. And given no FD came on the turn you are basically trying to represnt 66, 88 and the river actually can help represent the straight as 97 just got there.
If you are going to bluff I would bet bigger on the turn and you need to bet bigger on the river like you are trying to squeeze out nice value.

This is the perfect flop to raise, AP on turn I probably take the free card (depends on if I think my opponent will fire once and give up ott, in which case I fire as well).

AP if we bet turn we have to bet river as well IMO. Your range is tough to determine because we don't know if you raise hands like A6/A8/66/88 preflop (we can assume you raise AQ+/QQ), and we don't know the sizing that you would normally use with those hands. That being said V's hand looks a lot like an ace (so many people check when they hit after c-betting A-high), so you have to be sure that a) he's able to fold a pair, and b) that your bet is convincing enough to do it.

Dislike it. The river is a brick and his pfr range is full of A and Q.

Once he calls the large turn with the A scare card on dry board he is like almost never folding the river. This is where I ship it with my sets straights some 2 pair and make most of my money. They are very rarely folding here.

For sure, any informations would be of great help. Like whether Villain is the type to squeeze limpers light pre or most importantly is he capable of folding a medium strenght hand when he thinks he's probably behind. But we'll do with what we have...

Without going very deep into Villain's range OTR, we can see only from his line that he has a medium range tagged all over him: tiny c-bet OTF, check/call OTT, check OTR.
Bluffing those kind of ranges is usually a good idea when you face an opponent capable to fold (that's a crucial point, don't you have any information about that from what you've seen so far?).
If it's the case, the question is : "How much to invest ? "

I think your bet is bad because it's really too small and you really invite Villain with great odds to bluffcatch you with his likely medium strenght hand.
On the other hand if you bet big, most Villains won't second guess themselves and they'll just fold.
For me it's typically a case where investing more to make sure he'll believe that you've caught your second pair OTT or whatever strong hand and won't call you with his likely KK, KQ, QJ, any weak ace... is very profitable.
Putting him all-in puts much more pressure on him. Imo, betting 1/2 pot is by far the worst solution of all. You should either give up or (preferably imo) push because if he calls you with KQ it's just terrible for you.

Of course, one could argue that Villain will level you and realise that if you bet big after he showed weakness it means that you don't want to be paid off.
But you said you had no informations and the vast majority of Villains will just fold to big bets and call reasonnable ones with their bluffcatcher.

When you push you need to get a fold a little more than 50% of the time to be profitable, and I'm sure you'll get that after Villain showed twice that he doesn't want to invest much in this pot.

meh, once you bet the turn which i don´t really get you more or less have to follow through on the river, so w/ever. not the best spot, but not that bad either, it probably works often enough even if you don´t really rep much.

I never had the chance to squeeze. I'm not sure if anyone in the llsnl even knows what a squeeze is.

A squeeze is when there is a raise, one or more callers, and then a 3-bet(squeeze).

I didn't call a 3-bet, I limp called a single raise. This is probably a fold pf though.

He might be decent, but I don't think he's good enough to reconstruct the hand this way and put me on a range.

@Zara, I do agree that betting more and getting him to commit his entire stack will put more pressure on him, but I think I can bluff smaller and get the same job done and have to win a smaller % of time to make this profitable.

@CRAI, do you really think players have a tendencie to c-bet A high hands and then check the turn when they hit? I disagree with this. I think he's double barreling if he improves and this is a good card to bluff at.

The river is def a brick and bad card to bluff at

I strongly disagree and I think it's a crucial point that's why I'm answering again.

Sometimes a small bluff is appropriate, but when you know almost for sure that Villain has a hand but not a very strong one that's a complete different story.
With a half pot bet you'll get 20% fold from KQ and you won't reach the % you need to make this profitable, with a PSB you'll get 80%+ of fold from the same hand and you'll be very EV+, I think there is a tremendous difference between the two. Threatening to take half of the remaining V stack or all of it is not the same at all (again provided Villain is capable of folding in the first place).

When you spot a medium strenght range there is no half measure, you must put maximum pressure on Villain. If he wants to check whether he's good or not he'll have to put all his chips in the middle. Period.
If you had bigger stacks I would even strongly consider an overbet bluff to make really sure he'll find a fold with his very likely medium strengh hand.

Most people don't see the difference, and those are the same people who are whining about being always caught by a third pair when they bluff.

Spew

Raise pre-flop.

Having a heart on the flop would make it a whole lot better... But if I felt like I had the FE in the moment, I would do it here too.

I don't think the turn bet is good at all. The sizing is too small and with two villains in the hand still it hits one of them too often.

problem is, theres not much for V to have that he folds here after his turn decision...we cant rep the draw or we dont bet turn, we cant bet the lone ace or we probably check river with showdown value...guess you can rep A8 but its pretty polarized. mayyybe AQ IF image is just right for it. pretty marginal bluff at best, same thing i keep doing

What are you repping? If you want to bluff you have to do it on the flop with a raise. Are you saying you limped pre with an Ace? Also, if you wanted to rep an ace you should bet a lot more than $50 because players don't just fold 2nd pair in this spot very easily. However, since you limp called and then called the flop I don't think you can reasonably rep an ace in this spot. Once villain calls turn he is unlikely to fold this river.