Villain UTG ($550): active, aggressive, loose but thinking. Has made a couple of big laydowns. Opened previous hand utg+1 with J9 and 3 streets of value on AJ9 flop.

Hero CO ($250): tighter image but aggressive. Has not been out of line.

V opens $7 utg (his standard ep open).
Folds to hero w/QQ. $25
Utg calls. Heads up.
Flop($53): 8sTcTh
Utg: check
Hero: $35
Utg: call

($123) 8sTcTh 5c
Utg checks.
Hero $55
Utg thinks for about 10 sec and then slides out a stack of $150

Hero($130 behind): ?

I like checking the turn against an aggressive thinking player.

As played it's annoying. Is he calling a 3bet pre with Tx? Maybe, he seems pretty loose. But I discount it. 88 and 55 make sense, occasional slowplayed AA or KK. Hard for him to have many bluffs here and your hand seems face up, but your small turn sizing (which I like on this board really) could have induced a bluff.

I lean fold because I don't see how he can really have a bluff here. Reads show no reason to believe he has some weird kamikaze bluff in a spot like this.

I puke fold here.

Given paired board I may check behind turn.

Probably fold. I would have raised to $35 pre to set up an SPR of ~3.5 where I'm ok with stacking off on favorable flops. As played on a paired broadway-card board I'm probably betting flop, checking turn, and evaluating river. Hard to get three streets of value from worse. What's he supposed to call the turn with?

The TT board should set off alarm bells; he has so many T's in his range. Not instafolds by any means, but I definitely plan on playing this one carefully when I see that flop, much more carefully than I would lower pairs.

I wonder if it's results-oriented thinking, but I also like checking back the turn. I'm okay with keeping the pot small against lags who put me in scary spots, and just good players generally.

I'm folding this river. With this turn raise we're being asked to put 125bb into the pot with an overpair against a wide-ranged villain on a board that has few bluffs on it, and our hand probably isn't improving. I need more specific reads to commit to a hand like this.

Only 65bb left to be put in by hero.

I like check back. If villain is aggressive, thinking, he can make a play at the paired ten even if he doesn't have it.

It also allows v to possibly bluff river assuming a A or K does not fall. It would be hard for villain to lead river without A or K in that case. We can likely call river or bet if he checks for value.

I was actually the villain in the hand. Wanted to make sure that my line was as strong as I thought it was.
Had him narrowed down to QQ/JJ--he isn't 3b pf with less than AQ, he checks behind the turn with AK/AQ, and I think his sizing is bigger (pf and on flop) with KK/AA.

grunch: call

only because i think that turn bet may reak of weakness to a lag that he would attack. but if you think he mainly bets for value post flop then i suppose i could find a fold. this seems like the type of villain to bluff catch on scary boards.

Paired boards aren't bad bluff or semi-bluff spots especially against TAGs. It's not hard for him to think you've missed on that board and so he floats your flop and check raises your turn bet. He might check-raise with small or middle pairs (66, 77, 99) or J9 or Ax. He's succeeded in applying the right amount of pressure with that play.

Of course it's possible he's full or got trips and is concerned that if he calls your turn and checks or even leads on the river he'll loose value.

If he was going to make a play at this pot he would do it just like he did. He wouldn't wait until the river. However, he maximizes value and this play maximizes value for his big hands against your over-pair.

He's played his hand well except for that upfront pf raise and 3 bet call from oop. What was he representing pre-flop that he's now representing? It could be 88 or less likely 1010 but it could also be a big A or 99 or even JJ or some nonsense.

Call.

Nice. This is the only "I was villain" thread that I've liked.

How big do you think his bet size would be with KK an AA? How did you observe this tell in the game?

I think the line taken by villain screams 88 here. Makes small raise UTG , calls the raise made by hero to try to flop a set, knowing the 3-bet screams high pair and if he flops a set he can stack hero off. Flops 8s full, slowplays the flop, induces the turn bet, then making the move on the turn since it looks more like hes making a move rather then if he leads out the river it would look way stronger.

So what does the actual hero have?

Thanks. Figured it was the only way to get objective replies. Funny, coincidental or not, that the next two replies after acknowledging I was the villain said call...

I've played with him about twice a week for awhile. Have seen AA/KK opens for $15 and 3b's of $35+, depending on number of callers. That, and the fact that I had blockers helped to narrow it down to JJ/QQ.

The turn put up the backdoor flush draw and I thought that my perceived range should definitely be wide enough to contain a 10, which I would protect from the draw.
I liked the line.
FWIW, I would 100% play AA vs him the exact same way.