Good Afternoon peeps,

firstly thank everyone who reads and help review the hand. I havnt played Mississippi straddles before so that compounds my mistake pre flop but up to the readers.

Playing a $5/$5 Home game
Effective stacks at $600

Hero: Mid 20s, played 2 Big hands early and has been quiet. Also only played with 1 player at the table so not much information about the player pool.

Villian: Mid 30s, lost 3 all ins in the 2 hours of play but also been very unlucky (set v set) (Nut flush draw v gut shot straight flush draw) and another.

OTH

Mississippi straddle $10
SB Calls
BB Calls

Hero CO - T8 raises $40
BB only caller

Pot $100

Flop
QQ9

I think this board hits he villains range more than mine. In him mind though i would be raising here tigher and stronger meaning i have more Qs in my range but i generally dont.
I am not sure what the correct play is because i think my range is weaker, but i also have T high with a draw.

Villian: Checks
Hero:Checks

Turn *Bink*
J bring in hearts draw

I now have a made hand (straight) on a paired board. and should have the best hand more than often

Villian Checks
Hero Bets $55

Is this bet too small? I dont want to bet $80 because that set up stacks for river. And if we are playing stacks i am against a full house lots.

Villian Raises $160 ($105 more)

TBH i dont know what he is repping here, He shouldnt have KQ, JJ, Q9, QQ, QJ. These hands, raise pre, or bet the turn trying to set up stacks.

Nb: Now reviewing it he could have AT or KT

I decide to call and not call a river shove.

Hero: Calls

River 6
Pot $400

Villian Checks

Now that he checked the river, im very likely in front. At the time i thought there were no hands beating me that would play this way.

*cough* KT *Cough*

Hero: Bets $75

I am trying to get a call from QT, Q8, Q7 etc
or he had a busted flush draw and still folds.

Thoughts on every street?

Pre: my experience with the mississippi straddle is that you want to make your pfr bigger, regardless of position, because BTN will have such an advantage when calling. Add in some limpers, and 40 just doesn't cut it. 70-80 imo.
(BTW i don't mind raising T8s in this spot, but it should probably be very near the bottom of your range)

Flop: Bet. Yeah his range connects better with Q's and 9's but we have more value combo's like AQ/KQ and overpairs. Also in this case we flopped some equity and have T high, which usually doesn't win at showdown .

Turn: Yeah fine. Not great to get x/r'd but we have a strong hand and V could be bluffing or semibluffing. Can't fold obviously.

River: ffs bet more than 20% pot. Any calling hand will call at least double that. If anything this might induce a shove, which we can't really call.

I agree with most of what Viral25 said, but I would check flop. LLSNL Vs are just notorious unbelievers on paired boards.

As for river, I prefer a check back on this board. Your tiny bet only gets calls from trips and the rest of his range that doesn't fold (that beats you or doesn't, and could include some trips being turned in to a bluff) raises for value or due to sensing weakness.

While I usually advocate bet/folding made hands OTR for more value, on this board with this action you barely have better than a bluff catcher.

There are a lot of potential strategies to take on the flop since we're crushing polarity advantage, our overall range is ahead, but neither player has much air. Checking dry GSSD is definitely fine.

River's really gross because our ranks and suits mean we block really important combos of QTs and Q8s, only sensible size is a shove, and we're definitely worried about QJo/Q9/KTo and some 99. If you at all think he's a rec, the fact he was BB and l/ced means we put him on enough offsuit Qx that you have to bet.

I understand wanting to bet small because he doesn't have to fold too many Qx before we're value owning ourselves, but betting $75 into $400 seems kind of like a why-bother bet. $150 seems good.

EDIT: Meeeeeh, counting combos it seems pretty clear we have to nit-check here. It's razor thin, and once you discount offsuit combos of Q7 type stuff, make his fold-with-worse percentage non-zero, and consider you lose some money sometimes when he shoves worse, that value dissipates.

I like the way the hand was played except the river. Maybe $50-$60 pre, but not a huge mistake given your position. (I assume you knew straddle wouldn't defend and/or doesn't raise his straddle light?)

I check back this river. Can't handle a check/raise from V, to matter how unlikely, and the small bet might induce a bluff/raise.

I b/f $175 otr, my Villains can't fold Qx here and they're not turning it into a bluff.

I'm betting this flop because we have a general range advantage and I want to fold out his AK/AJ/AT/KJ type hands that we can't beat at showdown.

Fine with the rest of the hand until river - I think the bet is soooo small that it screams value, but I don't want to go big here because V's calling range should be elastic. I don't think he has all the Qx combos and he can't pay off much with much else. $125 would be better because then it at least plausibly looks like a bluffing size.

Thank you for all you comments.

When I played more seriously 3x as raise size was known as a good thing. I raised 4x pre so I need to look at sizing up. The game I play raise 5-10x pre regularly and because I generally play a tiger range than opponents it last a winning strategy.

At the time I have a river decision my thoughts were that my opponent had zero hands that beat me. This assumption is wrong cause he would play KT this way. I was planning to call river shoves because of this (betting $75 helps this) this thinking on this spot could be flawed. Villains in this game would fold $175 river bet with Q5 but I do agree with sizing to 40% ish pot should do it especially if I was bluffing in my range.

consensus is;
Pre: Raise 6-7x cause straddle from button
Flop: sometimes bet, sometimes check.
Turn: fine
River: Bet $150-$200

Result:
Villain folds.
Villain said can beat AT which I believe because he showed 2 other players.

This

If I (hero) bets $175 river and is shoved on there would be $225 behind.

I don't like folding with $975 in pot and $225 left in stack. I would rather check than b/c

Betting to induce so rarely works in these games, which is one reason why we can b/f with lol amounts behind, our villains just don't x/r bluff rivers because they don't recognize that we are b/f rivers for thin value.

Betting a small enough amount to embarrass the other player is one way to attempt to induce, like $25 here, but you'd want a boat, and it's still not going to work very often. (villain dependant obviously)