Hand before I was on the button. After a couple limpers and a raise to $6, I made it $25 with two red aces (they were so beautiful). BB is a loose player. Limps about 40-50% of hands calls. Guy who raised to $6 called. I took it down with a c-bet in the flop and showed the aces. Onto the hand.
Folds to me in HJ. AsQh. I have $360. My image is probably fairly tight. I have taken down most of the pots I’ve won without a showdown on turn or river. When I have had to show hands I’ve had pocket kings, AKs. Premiums. I raise to $7. Old man (60ish) OTB with around $60 calls. SB, guy who plays nearly half of hands calls. He has around $300.
Flop $22 8c9cQs. SB has checked dark. Do I bet? Do I bet my entire range? My thinking is I may only get two streets of value from inferior hands and to check here.

You will always want to bet this. It's likely you have the best hand right now but it isn't a pretty board. Your hand will hold up a lot better if you get heads up now. Your hand probably is only good enough for two streets of value but it's more profitable to go bet/check/bet or bet/bet/check when you are only aiming for two streets.

There are hands you will not want to bet here. Hands that whiffed entirely like AKo/AJo that don't have a pair or good draw should be checked a good portion of the time. You might also check if you have a club draw and prefer to take the free card.

Spacing bro.

I wouldn't raise to less than $10 pre at any stake or stack depth live, or in any configuration other than the occasional blind vs. blind when it's folded to you.

I would bet $35 OTF. SB calling range on this texture is likely inelastic and an overbet will make it easier to snap fold if you get raised on this board. Definitely going 3 streets on some run outs but the board could get ugly quick, especially since you only raised to $7 pre and SB's range is effectively uncapped.

Typical open in this game was $6 plus limpers. I was just being consistent. I think too large an open looks suspicious plus let’s donkeys play correctly against my tight range.

If you play like everyone else, you're going to get results like everyone else.

They don't care that you have a tight range. They look down at 66s or 109s and can't resist investing $10-15 pre to potentially crack your AA for a large return.

You need to make sure that they're making a mistake trying to set mine, not enable them to profitably do so. Who cares what the standard open size was?

Bro, y u mad tho?

I'm not mad, what are you talking about? Just articulating why pre is terrible

Pre raise is way too small. If we're playing 1/2, I go $15, if we're playing 1/3, I go $20; note - these are just base sizes, and what we're ultimately looking for is the right size to get us heads up.

I don't want to check this flop. It's pretty wet, and we need to bet for value/protection. I'm going $20 otf and folding to a raise from SB.

OP, don’t post hands if you can’t take constructive criticism. RtP has given you standard advice. The only one who seems mad is you.

Raise more pre. My standard open in. $1-2 is $10. Bet the flop. All kinds of worst hands can call you.

Please don’t project your displaced anger into me.

Back to the hand. Do we still open so big considering most of the stacks at the table are around 50 BB?

Figure out what size you need to gets heads up most of the time and then work from that to find the range that works for stack sizes. With short stacks your going to need a tight range, likely outright nitty in EP. Also very few or no squeezes or bluffs preflop, you won't have any maneuvering room post flop.

What works best is very situational. You need to know who will limp/fold and who will limp/call. Try to figure how multiple limpers will effect things. And make some judgement calls about what people after you are likely to do.

Thank you. This is very helpful.