NWI NL 1/2
Hero has been at the table for 2 hours and is at $350. The table is very active. It's the high hand promo day and there are a lot of gamblers on the boat.
Hero has A K in MP.
It folds to Hero. Hero raises and makes it $12. Most of my raises are either 12 or 15 when it's folded to me.
Button calls 12 and everyone else folds.
Button is a 2/5 Horseshoe player. He's a 35 yo WG. He sees Hero as being too tight. He likes the action on this day so he plays 1/2. Button is very sticky. He seldom folds to C-bets and is tricky. I respect him but his stack goes up and down due to a 50 to 60 VPIP. I think (I hope) he tightens up when playing 2/5. I do think the money at our level is tough for him to take seriously though. He's doubled up and at $400 now.
Flop POT is $26.
237
Hero bets 15. Button calls.
POT $56.
Turn 9
Hero loses heart and checks. Button checks back.
River A
HERO????????

sorry man changed it

is he an auto betting type guy, who will bet the river when checked to and try to steel the pot or will he roll over his middle pair?

If you think he will take a stab at it, c/call. If you think he's the type that will check back, bet. The ace is in your range so he's prob checking back all under pairs.

I'd bet half pot on river

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

board: 2379A

dead cards: AK

Result	Hands	# of combos	% of combos
Hands that beat us	Ac2c,Ac7c,As2s,As3s,As7s,5h4h,5s4s,5c4c,5d4d	9	17%
Hands we beat with showdown value	Ac4c,Ac5c,As4s,As5s,TT,JJ,44,55,66,88	40	75.5%
Hands that whiffed	6h5h,6s5s,6c5c,6d5d	4	7.5%

Standard line would be to bet/fold 28 into 56 and not let him check behind.

If you think he'll often bluff at it after we capped our range by checking on the turn, you can bet 14 with the intent of calling a raise to 70.

I think he is player dependent. He's a little cautious of me because I've showed down big stuff with him before. He's a thinking player. Real gambley with gambletrons and more conservatives with others that he knows.

I don't like the flop cbet. Reads indicate V is unlikely to fold and is tricky. The last thing we want to do is lead out, have V raise and start building a big pot when we're OOP with a whiff that might still be best.

I'd x/c this. Let's keep V's range wide, deny him information, and keep the pot smaller. If he checks back, that's great. One of us is getting a free card, but it might well be we.

I'd occasionally bet the turn, to mimic those times we did actually have an overpair but checked the flop. I expect to mostly get called though, since he'll know he's invited a bluff by checking back the turn. Check/calling would also be my default here.

The river is interesting. It's not likely we have an big pair since we checked twice. As we move from KK down, we have more and more overcards to fear and thus more and more reason to bet out.

That leaves a lot of aces in our range.

If we bet, we can get looked up by weaker aces, and maybe some suspicious PP that want to see a showdown. We wouldn't want to bet large.

If we check, he might bluff, but we have to think about what hands he thinks we have that will fold to his bet.

Good PP are somewhat unlikely, since all we've done is check. Various AX hands are certainly in our range; they're not going to fold. All in all, from his perspective a bluff isn't going to look all that promising.

Mostly, I think V is going to think the A hit our hand. He thinks we're too tight, so he's not putting us on 44 - 66. If we had an overpair to the flop, why check it twice.

If we do lead out, I think V is capable of finding a bluff raise (tricky player playing at a level where the money is pretty meaningless).

I'd b/c 25. Mostly I'm hoping he doesn't raise and our hand is good. If he does raise, I think we're often beat but should call because I am guessing he has enough bluffs in his range to make the call marginally +EV.

Edit after reading responses. If we think a smaller bet will induce, then I like that line a lot.

I think this depends a little bit on how tight hero is playing and whether villain thinks we're capable of folding an overpair if he goes for the bluff raise.

Villain calls too loose preflop and on the flop and views hero as too tight.

I prefer betting 2/3 pot flop and turn with AK+/QQ+. It's not that easy for him to station the turn bet without TPTK against a guy who hardly played any hands in the last cple of hours.

These are important points you're raising. As a rule i always c-bet in a heads up pot but maybe i should start reconsidering that rule. When there are like 4 guys in a pot that i whiff i don't even bother with a c-bet.

Unless you're playing weak tight players pretty exclusively, cbetting 100% -- even HU -- may be a bit too often.

It's useful to have some check backs in your lines for a few reasons:

* Some flops hit a preflop caller pretty hard. Flops with two or three medium cards (8 - J), especially suited, are a good example. Those flops also tend not to look like they hit a stereotypical PFR range. When it looks like you missed and it tends to hit them, you're not likely to get enough folds to make the cbet profitable (though in some cases double barreling can be profitable).

* Some players peel the flop really light. If you're going to cbet them, it has to be with the intention of double barreling. The cbet on its own loses money, but a smaller cbet (hoping they'll peel light) and then a bigger turn barrel (to get the fold) can be very profitable.

* If you cbet every time, eventually some of the less bad players will start calling you more often and every once in a blue moon, you'll find someone who will play back.

I'd make it more like 70% to 80% HU, checking back whiffs on flops that both don't hit a stereotypical PFR range and do tend to hit a preflop caller range.

Very persuasive and I am going to start following that advice. There are weak tight players in my game but they're not the majority.