Playing at Ocean's 11 in the 2/3 buy-in is 1-400.

Hero: sb, $450 AJ
Villain, UTG+1 about $500 ??

Game is relatively loose and passive, average preflop raise is $15. Villain seems to be a thinking TAG, I have seen him around quite a bit and never seen him get very out of line.

Preflop: UTG calls 3, UTG + 1 raises to $15 folds to hero in SB

sb calls
bb calls
UTG calls

Flop: QK9

checks to UTG + 1 he bets $20 into about $55 dollar pot
sb calls
bb calls
utg folds

Pot: around $115
Turn: A
I called the flop mainly because of the small bet compared to our stacks

I was surprised that the turn checked around.

River Q

Hero: Bet $80
bb: Folds
Villain: tanks for about a minute and then goes all-in

At this point I would be calling about $335 for a pot of around $610

I tank for awhile replaying the hand in my mind. The small flop bet and check through lead me to believe that he wasn't that strong but I ultimately folded.

I'll share my thought process later.

What his UTG+1 range? Because a tight, positionally aware player might be crushing us enough to fold OOP.

Flop, turn and river are fine IMO. Hard to see a big hand that shouldn't have bet the turn as well but still folding.

yes against a TAG I prefer a 3 bet preflop or fold
Given his table position we have to assume he has a narrow range opening in early position (strong value hands) unless you have seen otherwise (ex. if hes opening small pocket pairs or suited connecters)
I'm leaning more towards fold

As played: really hard for him to be bluffing here unless this is a complete spew and his line makes no sense. I prefer a x/c river I don't think we are getting called by worse here often. If he is a tag we can take him off weaker Kx hands KJ K10 and I doubt JJ or 1010 are calling this river given the action. Probably has KQ and checked turn afraid of other 2 pair combos and pot control.

I think river bet was too thin

Fold river

River is a ck fold

Hate the flop call OOP. Even if we get there, we will never make enough to make it long term +EV.

Were you betting for value or as a bluff? I assume you will tell us ...

V Flop bet is 'fine' to thin the field and keep the pot under control with this Board. Although on the small side, I wouldn't consider it 'small' .. kind of a tournament bet.

When the Ace hits you it does put two overs out there to any Qx hand. So by betting the River you basically put yourself into Qx hands since most Ax and Kx hands are going to c/c. This is a pretty narrow range for V to consider. A JT might raise the Flop and probably would Donk the Turn so we might be able to rule that out as well, especially after the Board pairs.

I think the tanking might be to consider if you have AQ, or just a show, but this guy probably had QJ at worst and probably a KQ boat. The fact that you bet out 80 should make it easier to fold than if you had tried a blocker bet of 45-55. GL

Grunch.

I'm not a fan of the preflop call. If V is tight, his EP raising range has you in bad shape and you're in bad absolute and relative position. I guess you can call hoping to flop a monster with 30x behind, but I think it's pretty marginal. If you think you're ahead of his EP raising range, 3b it.

I hate the flop call. Yeah, it's a small bet but what do you think you're beating? About all you're ahead of is ATs. A turn ace might be good, or it might give you a nice second-best hand. The gutshot is a likely winner, but you're not getting paid. You made a speculative call pre; you didn't hit; next hand.

River is an easy fold for me. There's only a tiny fraction of his possible EP PFR range that he'd need to turn into a bluff here.

I fold preflop. We're facing an EP raise with an easily dominated hand (high RIO vs low IO with TP type hands), will end up OOP, plus it's unlikely it's going to go multiway with only 2 players left to act (can't take advantage of our multiway properties of the hand). Very lucky that we ended up 4way (likely best possible result, and even still it is meh).

Another easy fold on the flop. Our gutshot is to a 4-to-a-straight, so very low IO. Plus we still have 2 to react behind us that could make life difficult. Plus we're OOP (harder to get paid off). It doesn't really matter that the bet is small compared to stacks or pot. We're still only getting 4:1 on a 10.5:1 shot and opponent would have to be and idiot to get in much money if a T hits.

I also check the turn (EP raiser typically has us destroyed at this point) and am also surprised it checks around.

Not sure what is going on by the river, but at this point it looks like everyone has very small hands or is sandbagging a monster. So I'd actually go very small on the river, like $30 just trying to get paid off by a worse hand that can't fold for that price; I just don't see what kind of worse hand is going to pay off a large bet like the one we made. Villain's play is a little weird, but he mostly likely has us smoked and was slowplaying the turn, so I also fold to the raise. ETA: Also cool with check/fold idea too.

Glearntofold,imoG

Preflop: Raising ranges for most of these player is to wide to fold AJ suited. We are going 3 or 4 way every time (people will almost never fold after calling in this game and people over defend their blinds...though maybe I am an example of this here?)
Flop: this might have been questionable and in hindsight I agree that folding here was probably the better option. I probably overvalued the gutshot but felt that there were a lot of Js in the villains range and there was a chance to stack him if we hit.
Turn: I considered bet/folding here but didn't want to bloat the pot if I bet and people called.
River: I bet here for a couple of reasons; it felt like a very difficult board to make a call on the way the hand played out and I felt there was a chance of folding out other Aces. When the villain raised I replayed the hand in my head and felt that I beat a lot of his range. With the hands I most likely lost to being Q9, QT, QJ. The possibility of chopping also played into my decision to fold.

I spoke with the villain later in the night because he was curious about what I folded (I tanked for a long time and I think he believed I was going to call.) He told me that his hand was KQ, which I tend to believe and is in line with a lot of the analysis here.

remember why we bet
to get worse hands to call
to make better hands fold
are we getting worse hands to call ??? NO
are we getting better hands to fold ??? NO
some instances to get value from our equity

Your River thought process is off....you have him labeled as a TAG opening in early position. If he his a real tag the only worse A that you are getting called by is A10 and you are chopping anyway. TBH he prob is folding A10 utg+1 at least he should. If hes a real TAG hes never opening Q9 Q10 QJ from that table position. If he was late position HJ CO or Button then that could be reasonable.

as I said a day ago KQ is the only hand that makes sense here or he tried turning JJ into a bluff but u don't see that often at these limits

If I was certain my process was spot-on I probably wouldn't have posted the hand

At the time I was thrown off pretty heavily by the weak flop bet and the check through on the turn.

no I understand just food for thought

also u have him labeled as a TAG but u say his range is too wide here?
I am confused did you mean to put LAG?
Tag's have narrow value heavy ranges

If he has a wide range then its even more of a reason to 3 bet preflop

As played the 3 bet pre is the way to go you would have most likely taken it down there also the 3 bet would have isolated him instead of going multiway

TAG is probably a misnomer but definitely significantly tighter and more aggressive than the field (many players in this game raise very light and often without much thought or logic behind it.)

I considered 3betting preflop and probably would lean more that way in the future.

It's tough to define TAG without a table dynamic tied to it. KQ (suited?) may very well be the bottom end of a TAG range at some (many) low limit games. Key more on the 'thinking' part of the description ...

The betting almost looks a little Nitty/Passive ... Feeler Flop bet even with a strong hand and a check when another scary card comes out on the Turn. Then ... BAM ... a polarizing (no really) bet on the River with a nutty hand.

A thinking reg 'sees' that even with top two he needs to get through two more cards on this table and JT is very possible with multiple callers. Then everything falls into place for him on the River after the table checks through a scare card.

I don't really like the 3-bet route 'that' often ...
1) How does his 3-bet flatting range do against your AJ? I think you are way behind AK/AQ and at best flipping v 99-JJ
1A) What does his IP 4-betting range include ... 99/TT? Big enough to include 'enough' flips? Doesn't matter, you're folding anyway ... If he's a thinking player he may think you are 3-betting lighter than he's opening.

2) Are you really expecting him to open wide enough to get enough folds from him .. and the rest of the table? The 3-bet might be totally appropriate for the rest of the table, but not this guy IMO. Do you really want him to fold out his AT/KQ hands?
3) TAGs tend to be pretty sticky with their chips, I don't like giving action to player's who wont give it back 'very' often.

On the other hand, if you are 'not' going to be able to get out of spots like the one you posted, then a 3-bet will make your decisions easier the rest of the hand and probably save you chips in the long run.

Win the war, not every battle ... GL