Definitely the largest pot I've played so far in 1/2. Here's the setup:

Villain: $500 stack. Been at table for 1hr, I stereotyped him as a reg and downgraded him to a bad reg after some open limps and seeing him bet flop/turn with second pair.

Hero: $600 stack. Moved to the table when it opened 90 minutes ago, probably have a maniac image since 30 minutes ago I shoved a flop blind (might post that one later). Mid-20s, talkative, and white as the sun.

$5 BU straddle is on. SB fold. V in BB raises to 10. UTG+1 calls. Folds to hero in CO w AA. Hero raises to $50. Villain calls, UTG+1 folds.

Pot: $109
Flop: T94

V checks. H bets $35. V raises to $75. H calls.

Pot: $259
Turn: T946

V checks. H checks.

Pot: $259
River: T9468

V shoves $375. H tanks, talks to himself, calls.

Nice hand. His line doesn’t make a ton of sense, unless he ran into it with QJ or Ah 7h. I like the call (especially not holding the Ahearts). QQ/JJ also make nice calls since we’d be double blocking QJ.

Why did you check the turn? I would have bet $100 +-25.

This is the one spot I think I went wrong. I think I gave too much credence to the check/raise, hoping to control the pot vs sets. V should never check turn with a set though (don't think he should really be checking at all tbh). I like the 1/2 pot bet for sure.

For anyone interested, GTO+ has me mostly 3bet shoving on the flop.

I don’t get the tiny bets on wet flops. Sure on A72r

Yup. In other words, you let V get in your head and control the betting. Or, put another way, you were afraid to get check/raised again. It happens to all of us at one point or another. The lesson you need to learn is to make the bets what you want, not what V wants.

Another example of this idea is you plan on betting $100, but someone bets $20 into you. You need to seriously consider making it $100 anyway. Note I said "seriously consider" and not to automatically raise. The weak lead is sometimes made to induce a raise.

With the $5 straddle, you can think about being 100BB effective.
I'm doing my best to shove it all in when I can.

Preflop bet to $50 (10BB) means if V is set mining it's 10:1 and anything else is worse.
V betting 2nd pair isn't great, and an hour isn't quite a lot of data, but it's what you have.

Flop: Kind of a small bet (I'm working on my bet sizes). I think you have priced in both flush and straight draws.
When V raises small, i think I'm tempted to 3!.
$225 would offer $150 to call for a $400 pot.
It also leaves you less than a PSB to shove turn.
I suppose there is both an argument to 3! shove, and to call.

Turn: Does complete the 78 OESD making the nut straight.

River: Your hand is under-repped. Played like AK. Tough call as V could show a WIDE range. Nice job.