So the only really interesting decision point I have in this hand is on the river. I'll post the whole hand for context, and if anyone has anything to say about my other choices in this hand feel free.

Situation: Brutal session, getting smacked around by the deck, HERO has already rebought twice and isn't going to again, down to about 122 and is in the BB. 7 handed. Pretty chill normal table, nobody getting out of line to a particularly extreme degree.

Villain Profile: Loose passive. Sees a lot of flops and probably calls a little more than he should. Doesn't bet very often and very rarely raises. Would much rather call a bet than bet himself. As an example, during one hand in this session, he was on the button and four people saw the flop. Flop checks through, turn checks through, and he rivers the second nut flush, checks to him, he checks back and admits he was too scared to try for value.

Pre-Flop
MP raises to 12. Two people call including VILLAIN on button. HERO in BB with 87s (suits won't matter) calls.

(Calling here might be a small mistake since I'm so short, I honestly don't know what the exact math is, but I can't lie, I was pretty tilted at this point and wasn't in the mood to fold anything pretty.)

Flop
10 8 4 rainbow.
Pot: 49

Checks through.

Turn
7, bringing a potential flush draw.
Pot: 49

HERO bets 25. Folds to VILLAIN on button who calls.

(I usually have the best hand now and a lot of rivers to protect against, and I can't count on other players to bet for me, so bet seems obvious.)

River
5, no flush possible.
Pot: 99

HERO, with 85 left, bets...

(So the river is mostly a brick. A couple straights come in, but I'm not super concerned about that. I'm sure that I should bet, since VILLAIN is a little station-y and he's not a bluffer or a thin value-better, so I don't think he's going to bet any hand that I'm ahead of, but I think he will call with some hands I'm beating.

My question is, how should I be sizing this?

My first thought was to bet like 60, but then I thought it was silly to leave 25 back when I have less than a PSB going into the river, so then I thought I may as well shove. But then, I thought about how big a disaster it would be if I folded out a 10 since a 10 compromises most of his hands that I want a call from. While the opponent is a bit of a station, he's not completely off the rails on calldowns, and he seems like the kind of opponent who is less likely to call the bigger the bet he's facing is.

Then I thought about some of the hands worse than a 10 that he could have that he could still consider calling with and wondered if maybe I should shrink to like 35. So I had mixed thoughts on it.

How do you guys feel about it? Small to get a call from all his made hands? Go for it all and try to get a hero call? Somewhere in the middle?)

bigger ott

While the cliche is to say fold preflop, the reality is the only interesting decision point was before the hand was dealt. Playing while tilted is the worst decision you could have made. You should have gotten up from the table and called it a night when you felt like this.

As played, the river isn't very interesting at all. You're most likely going to lose the rest of your money in this hand or another hand later. Occasionally, you might get lucky winning a bunch of flips and walk away with a couple of racks. So my advice would be to just shove it in. If the villain can beat 2nd and 3rd pair, he's going to raise over your bet and you'll have to call. He's not going to fold TP to less than a PSB and anything worse is going to fold to any bet.

Preflop is perhaps an indication of why you are having a brutal session / down 2 BIs. You only have a lol $122 stack and yet are putting in a hugenormous 10% of your stack with 8 high OOP. And even though we're actually only being asked to call $9 closing the action, it's still for too large a percentage of our stack (7%) to speculate (especially OOP), imo. I fold preflop.

I'm fine with checking (to fold) the flop.

With only a very short $110 left (which can fly around pretty easily in most 1/3 NL games) in a $49 pot and a drawy board, I would consider just open shoving the turn. Otherwise, I'm PSBing it. Really not a fan of our 1/2 PSB, noticing how this sizing will leave us with an 85% PSB for the river HU; our %PSB should be decreasing as streets go by, not increasing.

We shouldn't have this much to bet by the river, but I just shove. We're tilty and it could look like we're the ones on the busted draw, plus $85 is lol in a 1/3 NL game, and this guy is passive so he could easily have a hand worth calling with here (that others would have bet earlier, where we could sometimes consider a bluffcatcher against others).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I definitely make a fair few mistakes as a player but I'm pretty confident this isn't the case in this particular session.

Most of the reason why I'm down is two hands, one getting it all in pre with KK against TT with a T hitting river, and the other getting it all in on the flop against a super drunk guy with AK against 85 on KJ8 with a turned 5.

Also a third hand where I had KK and T8 flopped a straight on me, maybe I paid him off more than I should, not sure.

So not that it really matters but in this particular session I am just getting gutted by the deck and I don't think there's very much I can do differently.

That's fair enough, but tilt control is key in poker. If you have trouble controlling it (which it looks like you may be a little here preflop) then you'd be better off calling it a night.

GgoodluckG

Grunch. Calling pre here is not a small mistake. It is a huge one OOP and short. I'd rather 3-bet than call pre, but really this is almost always a clear fold.

AP, bigger OTT on a wetish board.

AP, shove.

Calling pre isn't terrible. You have a hand that is easy to stack someone if you nail it or just fold if you don't.

A bit bigger on turn and just shove river.

We're barely getting 15:1 IO thanks to our shortstack, plus we're OOP (harder to get paid off and play postflop), plus it's not even great if deeper thanks to RIO (FWIW, when our shove is called on the river by this passive guy we lose a decent amount of the time). It's pretty bad.

GimoG

I'd be less confident about that. On top of the normal considerations, YOU'RE ON TILT!

If you decide you can't get up from the table, you need to play a very tight, ABC game until you calm down.

As mentioned if a few comment already, here is not strategy your problem but mathematical and mental.

Mathematical:
You are down 2 BI witch is perfectly fine, we all been there, but having that small stack in front doesnt allow you to have enough money to make a comeback with the few good hands that this game offers given the time to make them. So, personally, i always have a stack that if i double i end up making profit if im losing.

Mentally:
...well.... come on. Take few days off to understand why u shoudnt play 87 OOP short stack and 2 BI down. When u got it, go back to the table with a stack and clear mind.

Leave even though I'm certain you won't heed this advice. Reasons:
1) You are playing your C game mentally
2) You don't have enough of a stack to fully realize your edge as a winning 1/2 player. (assuming you are a winning player)
3) If playing short on purpose you are not making the proper adjustments to profitably play a short stack.
4) Your image is ****.

I will try to sound less harsh than some, but let me say I have some very recent experience playing in sessions like this. The best thing you can do is just leave and save the $122 to fight another day because probably 7-10x, you will lose it all.

I will go street by street:

Pre: This is a CLEAR fold. OOP, only getting 10-1 IO when we ideally want 25-1 with SC's. Biggest mistake of the hand IMHO.
Turn: Bet for sure and I would go larger than $25. I think $35 will do the trick and give the FD's poor odds to draw.

River: Given descrip of villain, I like downsizing here a bit as his most likely holding is Tx (I would say KT-JT). Since he likes to call and won't bet himself, I would go $55 here and give him around 3-1 to call since he sounds like someone who will fold if you bet too large.

I'd size up OTT planning to jam river.

Preflop is LOL bad. 8 high OOP facing 4bb, on my A game I fold 100bb deep let alone here.

Hand is played fine.

20-25:1 odds for SC rule is designed for HU play against big pairs. Here we're 4 handed, closing the action, betting does not indicate big pair(tho who knows, right?)

Our IO are way bigger than our bet/stack size here (I assume we have smallest stack here) as like I noted this is 4 handed.

Mult people saying turn bet size (1/2 pot) is too small as it sets up OP's original question of river size betting. It's fine. It appears too small AFTER THE FACT that we only got 1 caller. Being first to act in no way lets us know ahead of time how many callers we'll get. If we ended up with 2 callers everyone would be saying/commenting "nice hand".

Do agree OP (by own admission) is tilting and should have left table before this hand was even dealt