$1-$2 No Limit Cash Game
I have been playing with these players for 3 hours:

UTG ($300) Fish who will overplay his hand.

HJ ($450) Frequently raises light. Calls raises light in position. Will make small bluffs postflop, but I have not seen any large bluffs or bluff raises. Will check down hands with showdown value.

CO ($100) Tight-Passive. Only plays with monsters.

Hero SB ($650) Loose-Aggressive. I have been raising preflop often and value betting light. This should allow me to get a little extra value from my winning hands.

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Preflop:
UTG limps. HJ raises to $8. CO calls $8.
Hero SB has AA and reraises to $25.
UTG calls $25. HJ calls $25. CO calls $25.
4 players.
Pot = $102

Flop: 984
Hero bets $25. UTG folds. HJ calls $25. CO folds.
2 Players.
Pot = $152

Turn: 2
Hero bets $50. HJ calls $50.
2 Players
Pot = $252

River: 4
Hero ???

How much do we value bet here?
Villain has $350 behind.
Do we push? Do we try for a check raise? Do we check call for pot control?
Are we afraid of being raised for any reason? Are we ever bet-folding?

What's the best play?
Please advise.

--CM

Pre-flop size is too small, especially in the SB. I'd make it 35-40.

Flop, again sizing is too small. As played, probably betting at least 2/3 pot (60-70 works).

On the river as played, I'd bet 1/3 pot or so, V will only raise with a flush here given description, so I'd fold to a raise.

Raise pre way much more if you intend to go to the river. If only 3bet small and getting to play 4 way pot with the intention to see the river while betting and callings on every street, you gonna lose. Actually this play is a -EV.(betting small pre and going to the river) yes, ..., -EV. You had position preflop by being in the SB. Why not load up the table preflop?

+1

Sizings are waayyyy too small on all streets. Would have set up for a river jam.

As played, I'd bet rather big since all the draws missed. Something around $150.

Is this a limit game?

In general, you don't want to ever bet less than 1/2 the pot. Not only are you missing on value, you're making it correct to draw against you. Even when you're ahead in a hand, your opponents' holdings still have some equity (odds of winning) and you're allowing them to call & profit when you make the risk so small compared to the reward (risk=calling your bet, reward = what's already in a pot). I'm not sure if you were trying to trap here or scared of someone out flopping you, but you've got to cut it out with small sizing. Even pre, I think we can bump it up more.

OTF, I'd go $60 - 70. It seems like we get called by worse from UTG and HJ and we have 9 outs to the nuts in the deck as well. This makes stacking so much more possible vs the route we took. Our SPR, (stack to pot ratio) is 4.25 vs the deepest villain. I think I'm ready to commit on this flop. SPR is a way to manage commitment thresholds when planning a hand out.

B/F 100 all day as played. Would have bet larger on flop/turn (65/105) and 135 or something on river.

I'd go 2/3 pot on the flop and half pot on turn. As played go about half pot on the river. Folding to a shove without a read. It would be a very strange decision for him to shove for value though on a paired board without the nut flush here. You could make a hero call if you think he's capable of bluffing. He would be repping a pretty thin value range. Most people aren't capable of bluff raising this river though given the action in the hand.

Obvious answer is to bet more pf. All the weak 1/2 players want to crack aces. With your table image, they're going to assume you have crap and want to call you even more. Betting to $40 isn't even a PSB. My guess is they all would have called it.

$1-$2 No Limit Cash Game
I have been playing with these players for 3 hours:

UTG ($300) Fish who will overplay his hand.

HJ ($450) Frequently raises light. Calls raises light in position. Will make small bluffs postflop, but I have not seen any large bluffs or bluff raises. Will check down hands with showdown value.

CO ($100) Tight-Passive. Only plays with monsters.

Hero SB ($650) Loose-Aggressive. I have been raising preflop often and value betting light. This should allow me to get a little extra value from my winning hands.

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Preflop:
UTG limps. HJ raises to $8. CO calls $8.
Hero SB has AA and reraises to $25.
UTG calls $25. HJ calls $25. CO calls $25.
4 players.
Pot = $102

Flop: 984
Hero bets $25. UTG folds. HJ calls $25. CO folds.
2 Players.
Pot = $152

Turn: 2
Hero bets $50. HJ calls $50.
2 Players
Pot = $252

River: 4
Hero bets $100. HJ pushes all-in for $350. Hero ???

From the comments so far, it seems that this is a now a fold?

What can Villain have here?
True. What did he raise-call preflop with?
There seems to be very few hands he could have here to push with.
Then again, since I have never seen him make a huge bluff raise, do I need to assume he has it and bow out?

$250 to call a pot of $702.
What do you do?

--cm

As a general rule, I would say;

Put the most money in the pot preflop. If you can get it all-in, the better. The less money left behind the better. Big or small stacks as long as you get the money in the middle preflop you'll be making the most money. Big stacks are a liability if lots of money are left behind. As I said, the less or nothing left behind, the better you are. As long as the effective stacks are in the middle pre, you are in command.

If ten villains snap all-in for $100 each you got 31% equity or $310
If nine players goes all-in for say $100 you have 35% equity or $315
If five dude slide all-in for $200 each you have 56% equity or $560
If heads-up all-in $500 you got 85% equity vs. unpaired ($850) or 80% vs. any pair ($800)

No matter what, you make money the most if no more betting post.

River: 4
Hero bets $100. HJ pushes all-in for $350. Hero ???

From the comments so far, it seems that this is a now a fold?

What can Villain have here?
Quote:
It would be a very strange decision for him to shove for value though on a paired board without the nut flush
True. What did he raise-call preflop with?
There seems to be very few hands he could have here to push with.
Then again, since I have never seen him make a huge bluff raise, do I need to assume he has it and bow out?

$250 to call a pot of $702.
What do you do?

--cm

He's got a boat. Fold. You have the only card that he might choose to bluff with in your hand.

3-1 pot odds are not enough for this call?
We are beat more often than that?

--cm

You might be right. He's repping such a narrow range of hands (99/88/44) that he only needs to have like 2 combos of bluffs for this to be a call.

But he might not even be capable of bluffing here.

I think it's close, but until I'm literally shown otherwise, I assume people are not capable of bluff-raising the river at LLSNL. He's repping 3 combos 99 and 88, 1 combo 44. Only 7 combos that you lose to, but he's got it.

I'd be astonished if he shows up with anything you beat.

If effective around $450 and you bet in chunks of $25 and $50 with AA .. wtf?
So, villain calls $25+$50 for $75 out of his $450 and bets the rest of $350 when he's got the most of edge. You bet the smallest amount with the most edge and now have to call the most of dollars when villain's ready for. Is that so?

wtf, ....villain think, we're stupid or what? (LOL)

No, man .., we are no playing like that AA. We're not calling this one. The next time we play AA the right way! - Another words, we bet the most of money early and have almost nothing left behind for him to choose from.

Oh, by the way .., we not even betting that $100 before his shove. Not even that one, because just before the river we realize how bad we f***it-up and abandon ship. We check and call a small bet but not calling shoves in a piecemeal betting pattern and then ... Puff!

When having AA, always look how much effective is left behind. Always look at that indicator. Don't play AA by betting in small chunks because the math doesn't work in your favor. Make sure you use a big shovel early in the hand and use a little broom for dusting later.

Put yourself in villains shoes. What would you raise call with PF? For me it would be AQs+, PP and suited connectors.

All of which beat you.

Yes, of course
Villain called small piecemeal bets of $25+$50 pre and OTF and now he thinks he's an alpha man. But you know what we gonna do? - We gonna restrict the effective to be exactly $75. It's gonna be like we start with $75 effective and got it all-in pre and lost it. Not a big deal. This way we will always play for all-ins because the next time we have learned to increase the participation fee.

We either play AA this way by betting the most or all of it pre very early or we not playing the goddamned hand at all. If we assign to villain all pocket-pairs, AK/AQ/AJ and all Broadways and A2s+ and we get 22+ without AA (we fold AA, not play at all), AK, AQ, and all suited Broadways and A2s+. We still have an edge over him like 53:47 even without the goddamned AA. We either play them right or don't.

I take two dark cards from the discards before I play AA in a piecemeal betting pattern with big stack left behind. That's how hard convinced I am about this whole old story of how to make the most with AA ... wtf?

Could there be a safer flop for my Aces?
We are almost always ahead or will be ahead by showdown.
As such, don't we wish to encourage action?

On the other hand, in the off-chance we happen to be behind to a set or a made flush, isn't it preferred to put less in the pot?

Don't smaller bets make sense in both of those scenarios?

--cm

Yes, Coran, we what to encourage action but not conditional action. Like villain gives action after the flop if suits him else he denies action. The more we put in the pot preflop the better we are in the long run. Why? - Because we put the most and villains puts the most too at the same time. He's needs to improve while we are ahead. If we let villain in for cheap he will stop putting action without improving and since we have AA we don't know if he improved or not. The break even point is about at the 15% of effective stacks. With that much money going in preflop villain is not getting the odds to improve into profit by drawing out on us and be profitable in the long run.

What it's going on in villain thinking? - At the flop if he beats any overpair he will continue to give action, else, if he barely match or think is beating TP he may give some more action for one more street else he folds.

You know what? : at the end of the day we don't really need AA to make serious money. If the deal is that villains want to give piecemeal action like little by little as a function of how he's improving, in that case we shove 50% or more of his stacks in the middle preflop and if he folds/ - well ..., wtf? he folds. But we cannot bet little by little and give him room to improve.

Like everyone notes here, bet bigger from pre-flop to turn.

I don't think anyone mentioned it yet, but as played I was leaning towards a x/c on river. You look kind of weak there and probably induce a small sized bet whether it's a bluff or monster. Does that offset the times he checks behind with a worse hand tho? I dunno...

I do know that I'll happily check and call 150, whereas when he raises all-in like this we really hate how things have gone.

OK, after thinking some more, checking the river really seems better to me than leading for any amount. What worse hands is he flat calling with on the river? Mostly pocket pairs, right? And he might bet those when checked to here, tho it sounds like he checks behind from the description.

At the start of the river, I think he has: some kind of busted draw (mix of overs, straight, K), a flush, or pocket pair. I wouldn't be worried about a boat at this point, but just group that with flush for now.

So I am checking to induce a bluff or to hopefully call a small bet when he has flush/boat. Note that OP has now revealed a river raise from villain, but at the start of river action, we have to be putting him on a very wide range of hands, many of which are busted draws. If he had an overpair, flopped flush, or flopped set, why didn't he play more agressively?

In fact, I've also talked myself into calling the river raise (as played) b/c it seems like a laggy guy pre-flop would have played more aggressively and I'm pretty suspicious he's just raising a scare card after calling small flop & turn bets (both < 1/4 pot).

I think you called the raise and won. ;-)

Think you played it fine. Sizing is fine.

I would probably check the river tho to keep my range as wide as possible. We look like we have the ace of hearts or top pair with ace of hearts and v can value bet worse but is going to probably fold everything we beat and raise everything that beats us. Check river>bet

As played i think we can call based on your reads. Also we are nearly priced in

All you're saying is very valid and logic but only in the simulator or in PokerStove where there's no more betting after the flop, turn and river.
Where the betting is $0 "zero" on every street it means that we are all in. Sure we win in that case no matter how many dudes are against us. That's the whole point. But if people bail out if don't improve and only stay in if they can beat any over-pair we have -EV.

If we need to figure out if we're priced in to call a bet after the flop, turn or river,..., well ... wtf? . We've gone too far for cheap. No good!

We are always priced in with AA preflop.

Lol didnt realize villain was the original raiser. Snap call and wp

I wrote something out because i thought the villain was one of the callers but vs the OR i woukd beat him.into the pot and always bet river

I like the sizing all the way thru.