I agree that after checking turn, folding river feels very weak passive.
After bet/3!, checking turn is weird. I would prefer bet/fold turn, and then maybe check river behind denuding on reads.
But, as played, you checked turn, which invites bluffs. Vs river bet might have been bigger than you wanted to call, but I think you have to grit your teeth and call here.

Where do u think he actually ranks..is he the 4th best 2/5 reg in Vegas?

He's lucky he doesn't play in Sweden. Jonathan Hellman would know his exact hole cards. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM That's what I'm talkin about!!

Grunch

Flop sizing was FPS but if you bet small to induce a raise so that you could 3! the flop so that you could check the turn so that you could induce a river bluff ... well there you go, we've arrived at your destination and there is no decision to be made other than calling.

This could all be avoided with a pretty standard $60 lead on the flop and treading very carefully if a raise comes in.

There's no benefit in us having this discussion.

It's worth pointing out, though, that the ability to read critically and assess the quality of the evidence supporting someone's claim to being the best, is somewhat related to the skills we use at the poker table. That's why we "read an article" and "make a read" on a player.

So if you credit that guy's claim on no evidence other than him saying so, it probably also means you're not thinking critically at the poker table. In which case, you could improve your poker game just by reading the newspaper or whatever, and asking yourself whether the evidence produced satisfies you of the truthfulness of the claim being made in the article.

You can vary your raise size if it's for a reason like:

-- there's a whale at the table who hasn't folded
-- there's a whale in the blinds who will feel priced in to call with his any two cards