2/3 nl

hero (mp): $300 young white kid
villain (button): $300 pretty loose middle aged guy, makes a lot of small stabs at pots when people show weakness, bet/folds a lot

Hero opens to $15 with AQ
Folds to villain who calls, blinds fold

Flop ($30): 762

I check. Wasn't really sure what to do here being first to act.. If I bet, I don't know if it's for value or as a bluff. I guess there's some incentive to bet just to fold out a random hand with overcards that has decent equity against us. If I bet and get called though I have no idea which turn cards to barrel.

Villain bets $25. I call thinking I could possibly have the best hand and if not still plenty of outs.


Turn ($80) 7 6 2 5

I check, villain checks.

Now I'm thinking I could have the best hand. If villain had an overpair I'd expect him to bet the turn, certainly 2pr and sets would. So if I'm behind it's to a weak 1 pair hand.

River: ($80) 9

I contemplate for quite a while on whether to bet like $55 to get him to fold a weak pair, or to check and hope my ace high is good. I check, Villain checks behind and shows 93o.

How to better approach these spots?

HU, cbetting is a MUST

*grunch* Given your read on Villain as frequently trying to steal, your passive play on the later streets is good. You give him the opportunity to bluff with worse hands.

The real thing to focus on is your reasoning for not c-betting. Given that you have Ace-high, you are probably (semi-)bluffing when you c-bet, but the idea is to c-bet a lot, so that you get called when you have a strong made hand and continue to fire.

When you say you have no idea which turn cards to barrel, that just means you need to keep studying, reading, and thinking things through. Which cards will opponent hold when he calls your c-bet? Some percentage of 1 pair hands (A7s, A6s, A2s, say, given that he flatted your pf raise on the button), some percentage of Ax diamonds and Kx diamonds and diamond suited connectors, some combos of 98 (suited or not), some 2-pair combos, and of course some sets. It's worth noting that you are ahead of a lot of these hands.

Good cards for you to barrel with are those that don't complete flush or straight draws or give likely draws pairs: 2 non-diamond aces, 2 kings, 2 queens, 2 jacks, 2 deuces, 2 threes, 2 fours (since I don't see button flatting with 85). Among these, the overcards are the better cards to barrel, since 1 pair hands fear them more.

I think there might be merit to barreling on the 3 sixes, and maybe on non-diamond eights and nines. All in all, there's still half the deck that you don't want to barrel, since the board is two-flushed and connected. But the c-bet doesn't have to be followed by a barrel in order to be effective.


-EF

Grunch***

This is a good board to C-Bet. Your C-Betting will most likely allow you to win the pot uncontested on this board. You have good equity in the hand. In regards to what turn cards you should continue to bet - I would be betting and AKQ or Spade turn card. The reason you're betting the K is because it hits your range as perceived by villain. You're betting A or Q for Value. You're betting Spades as a semi bluff.

i strongly disagree that this is a good board to cbet, and that cbet is a must HU. both our actual and perceived range don´t hit this board hard at all, so c/ with most of our range seems optimal. ofc, if villain is a fit or fold guy who folds a lot to cbets, well, go ahead, but described loosy goosy guy doesn´t fall in that category. AQs with backdoor fd would prob be about my bottom to c/c for value on this board.

think about why you cbet guys...

You state that if you don't have best hand that you still have plenty of outs. The way I look at it, post flop you have 6 outs, 3 Aces and 3 queens. Yes, a backdoor flush and straight would win you this hand but that happens 4% of the time so not sure I consider that 'outs'.

Heads up you can check or c-bet this flop. You don't have a lot of equity and flop probably missed your range, however it probably misses villain's range also and heads up you should c-bet all but the worst flops some of the time. I probably c-bet here about half the time, varying depending on villain's tendency to fold to flop bets and his preflop range. Against a loose villain I will c-bet air a bit more, but not 100% because anything might hit their wide range somewhere.

Once you bet flop, turn is obvious check. I would throw in the occasional bet to represent a smallish over pair that you didn't bet on flop or an AK/AQ hand that thinks it might be good. If you did bet flop and got called, turn is a good card for another barrel, not much got there on turn and you added equity.

River is 99% check after checking flop and turn. Betting here is representing a back door flush draw, 8X hand or some other weirdness that got there on river. That bet looks bluffy and will get called by any over pair, 9X and 7X a lot. If you had bet flop and turn you represent an over pair when you bet again and will get a lot more folds but once you show weakness it is hard to get people off top pair.

agree with most of this but the bolded, a b/b/b line to rep an overpair on this runout is very bad. not saying b/b/b is bad per se, but not to rep an OP---

Good point, I was speaking more in general. This particular board is not a good run out for a bet/bet/bet line. If you had the over pair on this board you would be far more interesting in a check/evaluate on river because a lot got there. You would be happy to check this down or at least keep pot size under control.

bet flop, don't fire river bc it makes no sense.

this
bet turn and then bet river