Villain (BB): mid 20s brown man; friends with a big fish at the table but seems to be less fishy; don't remember too many showdowns but he seems to be aggressive ($350)
Hero (HJ): mid 20s asian man; TAG reg ($500)

Two limpers to hero who makes it $16 in HJ with AK. Villain calls in BB and the limpers fold.

Flop: K96 ($37)

Villain checks and hero bets $25. Villain raises to $75. Hero calls.

Turn: 2 ($182)

Villain bets $90. Hero calls.

River: 6 ($362)

Villain shoves his last $170.

I'm getting better than 3-1, and the 6 cuts his KK/99/66/K9s combos down to 7. He could have a busted draw. But I really don't want to be that idiot who stacks off almost 2 full stacks with top pair cause "he coulda had a draw". Just let it go?

"You show if I fold?"
"Sure."

That change anything?

PF: OK

F: Pot is $37. SPR is about 9. Bet is good. Hmmm.. so V check raises here. So what does he do this with? 99, 66, AcTc+, 8c7c, 87? So if we call this bet, the pot will be $187 and he'll have $259 left. We can expect at least a half pot bet on the river. So say he bet's $90 on the turn, which at that point he's put in $169 which is about half his stack.

Does he check raise a weaker King? KQ? KJ? KT?

So calling here likely commits you to the hand. I would fold.

T: Pot is $187. 2d means nothing. Villain leads half pot (I was right!). He's asking us if we want to play for stacks. Do we want to do that with TPTK against this opponent?

Most check-raises in this spot mean a better hand than TPTK.

Yeah it sucks to fold TPTK here, but I would fold.

R: Pot is $367 and he's got $181 left. Not surprisingly he shoves. Well, we already made the decision on the turn. Another 6 doesn't really mean much. Are we really going to lose 175bb with TPTK. We should of made a commitment decision on the turn. At this point, we should fold, even though we put in half the effective stack. CR flop, half pot turn, and then half pot shove on river = super strong!

Fold!

Tough spot. Your read on V is everything here. Against your typical low stakes player, this is a very strong move that beats TPTK. Without the ace of clubs, I would fold. Decide on the flop how committed you are to the hand.

Once you call the turn thinking TPTK is good, you need to call the river. Calling the turn with the intention of folding to a blank on the river is absolutely terrible.

Call, it's not close. This is the best run out you could have asked for, if you weren't going to call down then fold flop

I agree that if we are calling the flop and turn we should be calling the river, but now that we're at the river, we need to forget the other streets and realize that this guy has us beat.

I don't know why we are saying to call now that we're at the river. wck177 says "...it's not even close."; sure it is. We need to think about this. Why are we going to call another 90bb just because we called the flop and turn. No one says we have to. What the hell do we beat besides a busted draw? He's not taking this line with KQ. We need to realize our mistake on the turn, and fold this river. I mean it's not like we need to call 30bb here; it's 90bb!

Echoing several posters, the real decision is on the turn. If you call the turn, you're calling the blank river.

Tough decision without stronger reads on the villain. But in a vacuum, I'd lean towards calling down with this hand. That flop creates very few made hands that are better than yours (sets of ks, 9s, 6s, k9, k6, 69) and only the sets of 6s and 9s are squarely in a standard preflop calling range. But the flop also creates a ton of strong draws (axcc, j10cc, qjcc, q10cc, 78cc, 6xcc), and (again, in a vacuum) villains are more likely to be calling with suited-and-connected cards than k9, k6, or 69.

So if it's possible that this villain likes playing his big draws aggressively, then it's -EV to fold the turn or river.

Or, TL;DR version: you're around the top of your range on a wet board. Call with this, fold with the weaker stuff in your range.

You are way to focused on absolute sizing, relative to the pot this river is a small bet and a pretty easy call as played. If we are folding here why the hell are we calling down. Yeah we beat busted straight draws and flush draws. V can have enough of those for us to call given pot odds so it is an easy not close decision. Now we can argue that we don't have the equity on flop to profitably call down given RIO, but on river we do.

Definitely calling this down. Plenty of busted straight and flush draws in V's range. Good for V for putting you to the test. 99 is possible from the BB but his turn sizing seems a little small if he was worried about a draw. Not much else in terms of value hands here. I think you are winning a good portion of the time, occasionally chopping and very rarely losing.

You're right that he's not taking this line with KQ. But I think you're heavily underestimating the chance that he has a busted draw. I've taken this c/r, bet, bet line with combo draws plenty of times before. If you're going to fire two barrels with a draw, you'd better be willing to fire the third one.

It looked like he's adjusting his sizings for a 1/2 pot river shove which is just what he did. And if he never stops betting after check raising draws then I agree that after we call flop we have to call all the way down on blank run outs. But the issue here is whether he gives up some % of the time on the turn and some % of the time on the river. If either one is a significant % we're in trouble here.

Isn't the "willingness to show if you fold" indicative of a weak hand, usually?

Alright, I see what you guys are saying about the draws in this guy's range. I guess I was just trying to say that we don't have to call the river just because we called the flop and turn, even getting 3:1. I guess it really comes down to is, do we believe this guy would take this line with a busted draw. If yes, call, if not, then fold

Below zero has the best responses imo. Idk what I would do though... Def folding river, but hard to put him on a hand that beats us. My guess is 99.

Uh no. Played fine op. Call river.

This makes no sense.

OK, how can I improve my thought process? How am I thinking about this incorrectly?

Let's not just criticize, but let's have a discussion.

It made no sense because the two sentences in bold directly contradicted each other. Sentence 1: I agree we have to call on the river. Sentence 2: but we need to realize we're beat on the river.

(But that's probably less about strategy and more about posters on forums composing our sentences on-the-run.)