Hi all,

Think I got max value from this hand but open to feedback.

1/3 game

H: Young. Playing straightforward. Not showing down a ton of hands either winning with a continuation bet or pre. ~400

V: new to the table. Came from another table. Middle Eastern. Playing lots of hands. Seems to take aggression when checked to from the small sample size I've seen. Has me covered.

OTTH: V limps UTG +2, everyone folds to me on the button. I raise to 16. Only V calls.

(36) Flop Ac 2h 9s

V checks. I decide to check back here. My reasoning was like I said he has shown aggression when checked to previously and It's such a dry flop I figure if I bet he'll just folds anyways. Also, I know it's 1/3 but still want to stay somewhat balanced.

(36) Turn 8d He checks and I decide to bet 20. He calls. My reasoning for betting was obviously thought I had the best hand and I was hoping my check on the flop looked like I didn't have an Ace.

(~70 with rake) River 10d. He checks to me. I make a super small bet of 20 and he calls.

Thoughts? I know this is probably extremely villain dependent. I had a plan before the hand but it didn't exactly work out perfectly.

Just bet the flop. You can bet $16 again with basically your entire range, and this hand should be in that range.

As played, I think the turn bet is fine and the river bet is on the small side, but not that bad to get value from worse pairs.

Bet flop. The aces you want to check aren't aces that can stack AQ-

To answer your question, you did not get max value from this hand; not even close.

River as played bet a bit bigger.

Checking flop is fine if your read is that he will fold to a c-bet >80% of the time or something similar. But you need to size up on the turn and river to maximize value. So bet something like 3/4 PSB on the turn and river.

Going for max value usually doesn't involve a flop check in position.

A good rule of thumb for LLSNL villains: they call too much.

Bet flop and he will peel lots of hands that you have crushed.

A great majority of live No Limit Hold'em players even winning players handle AK far too weakly. Playing AK this way guaranty the lowest earn possible for the hand. The lack of reciprocal edge by playing AK softly alone demonstrates why we should no play AK softly.

Why it is so important to play it strong? - Because is a only non pair hand that we can take a stand with. Meaning 3-betting, 4-betting and then be able to call a shove if in fact the villain is strong enough to shove on us. We can make life miserable for his TT, JJ, QQ and his AK too with our AK if they decide to 3bett our raises. We can 4bet heavy and be able to call a shove for 100 to 150 big blinds that it makes us extremely tough to play against. The only hands we worry about are AA/KK and even there we have two blockers that cut the combos in half.

Try this experiment. Make sure you take it very seriously. This is not a joke. OK!
Since we hold AK, all the other combos of AA or KK are cut in half. This is a known mathematical fact. So, since the entire table probability of having AA/KK is half less then when an AK would not be out there, what we can do is PRETEND we got AA or KK this time and play the hand accordingly. We will be in better shape and less wrong in this situation to pretend we got the nut hand vs. the time when we have QQ and face a potential of AA/KK to be out there in full force (6 combos each).

But not many strong players are around to worry that some QQ or AK will call our 4bet. I'm not even consider JJ or lesser hands to have enough nerve to put any resistance.