Pot control is an mtt term that really means little in a cash game environment due to the ability to reload. We should be checking in a cash game for one of a couple reasons. The most obvious 2 are: we are behind villains range and we don't think villain will fold (to our bluff). Or we are ahead of his range and think villain will fold to our value bet on the immediate street and/or will put additional $$$ in on a future street.

In that context pot controlling doesn't really mean anything other than hero doesn't really know what to do and has elected to check.

No, that's exactly what pot control in cash games is for. You have a hand with good value, but it's not good enough to commit a ton of chips with, so you want to get to showdown cheaply. Like 99 on a Q-10-8-6-2 board.

Trying to get to showdown with a marginal hand is solid reasoning for checking a street. Checking a street because there's a certain absolute number of big-blinds you're looking to keep the pot based on the absolute strength of your hand is bad. That's something MTT players do to reduce their risk of ruin in a tournament (and AFAIK, should only do in marginal situations anyway), but in cash games, it's all about maximizing EV.

Of course, I happen to agree in this case that we should check this street to get to a cheaper showdown with what I think is a relatively marginal hand given the circumstances, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm trying to match the potsize to the strength of my hand.

Maybe it seems like a subtle difference, but to put it in practical terms: if I thought villain had a whole helluva lot of 9x in his range and he was gonna call with it, I'd value bet without hesitation.

Maybe the best way to explain the subtle difference is that while pot control doesn't apply to cash games, 2nd Level Pot Control applies to cash games.

That is, your opponents only plan on paying you off x amount of streets with worse hands, and so if you bloat the pot to a certain point with a marginal hand, then you're gonna find yourself being up against mostly better hands. This can apply a lot of times when you're OOP on the turn, and a lot of people are tempted to bet with their marginal hands just because they don't know what to do. But what this does is make it so that when they are called and face a river bet on a blank card, villain's range is so bereft of worse made hands that you have to choose between sometimes folding to a bluff and sometimes calling to better value hands. Whereas if you keep your opponent in their comfy cozy potsize range, then the river should play itself out with either a value bet by yourself or a check to induce a bluff.

So a lot of pot control-like concepts apply to cash games, but so long as you're informing your decisions based on what range you put on your opponent and how you think they'll play that range, you're doing it right.

Most pot control lines in this forum relate to people not actively thinking about ranges and how their hand strength measures up to that range. So the default is "I don't know wtf to do so let's "pot control""

Sabr, once again, comes in and manages to convince me to rethink my conclusions.

So I thought alot more about this hand and am comfortable narrowing villain's range to AK or 3 combos of AA containing a

AK 1) preflop line makes sense, 2) near pot sized bet on flop makes sense. 3) the speech on turn then checking makes sense (he wants to scare hero to not bet so he gets a free card) 4) turn CRAI: possible..villain may feel hero won't pay off when a hits river. CRAI gives villain 30% pot odds and he has anywhere between 12-15 outs..Any FE would just be bonus

AAx:: 1) preflop makes sense 2) flop bet is a bit high, but w/e 2) Turn check: Villain isn't alway going to check AA here. Villain will likely continue the betting lead with AA because hero has mostly (if not all) overpairs that will keep calling as long as no scare cards hit.
Also, villain (most players) cannot logically conclude that a marked deviation from the standard line of betting can be massively +EV. This train of thought isn't feasible for most players in the heat of the moment.
Also, turn check CAN in all likelihood get checked through, so villain loses on a street of value.
So, maybe discounting villain to 1 combo of AAx that takes checks turn.

1 combo of AK and 1 combo of AAx

When we do the EV calculations using these two ranges, bet/call with QQ is +EV

Thanks a lot everyone for all the feedback. There's been some really good discussion in here, and I greatly appreciate the analysis and advice.

I'm afraid the results are anticlimactic: Hero tanked and folded to Villain's turn checkraise, and Villain didn't show.