Hero: young male in his early 20s has a tight-aggressive image

Villain: middle aged man, and by far the most experienced player at the table knows when to pick the right spots and has made some good hero calls.

Effective Stack sizes:
Hero ($500)
Villain ($350)

$1/$2 NLH cash game 9-handed.

Hero is OTB dealt AK

UTG +1 limps, CO limps, Hero limps, SB limps, Villain in the BB checks

I should have probably raised pf, but I try not to overplay AK as much, but I think that is the first mistake for me in playing this hand.

5 players to the FLOP ($10)
KQ7

SB checks, Villain in BB checks, UTG +1 checks, CO checks, Hero bets $12
SB folds,Villain in the BB calls, UTG +1 folds, CO calls.

3 players to the turn ($46)
8

Villain BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets $35
BB calls, CO folds

heads up to the river ($116)
7

Villain in BB checks, Hero checks.

Should I have thrown some sort of value bet on the river? And if so, what would be a good amount to value bet? I really put Villain on a draw, so I really didn't think he would call a bet OTR.

Bet 50 in case he has KJ or KT instead of the draw

Limping AK on the button is not TAG. It's OMC status.

Limping AK is a pure diversification play that you should be making very rarely and only under the right situation. Two limpers in front is not the right situation and you should be raising to get this heads up if possible.

After that I think your play is OK. You could bet the river and get called by worse hands, because limping pre under reps your hand. However, your bet/bet line is fairly strong and villain's line looks a lot like a draw. I don't mind checking here against a good villain. If you do bet $50 is good, because you want calls by single pairs. If villain likes to pick off bluffs you can go $100 here some of the time and represent a missed draw, but it won't work very often.

overlimping preflop is brutal

yes bet 1/2 pot on river

Bet $60ish otr. If he has a draw he doesn't call but you don't get money when you check and V def didn't play this like 2p or better

AK is just a drawing hand. No pair. You're beaten by 22 preflop. Yeah you should definitely limp the button here.

I really don't care about what happened the rest of the hand. You have a prime hand, one that you make $$$ with, one of your bread-and-butter profit hands. Raise it the hell up.

As played, yes, bet the damn river. You have the best hand.

yea I should have definitely raised pf. But yea I was thinking making a $50-$60 river bet. Only reason I guess I checked because of the villain. But yea, Im an idiot for not raising pf so I can get more money on this hand.

I hope this is a level. Yes AK is drawing hand but we still raise it, especially IP to try to get heads up. He's u will miss flop but are we really playing "match" or poker. U can win hands w/o hitting cards

yes, you obviously didn't read the second paragraph where i said raise

Raise AK 100% of the time, you are missing value by limping. As played bet 1/3 pot on the river. You have seen villain make good hero calls, let's see if he makes a bad one.

You want to talk about missing value otr but you didn't raise preflop. The pot could have been twice the size and he would have paid to draw ldo.

As the hand was played there was no value otr from a 3rd barrel.

Is this a level? ^^

Any chance villain's name is Ernie? He seems like an Ernie just from his actions...

If he has made more than one hero call, but I'd argue that he is a station.

1/2 river std, I'd lean towards 1/3 also, I since he likes to be a hero. Abuse his curiosity.

Yes there is. See posts above.

Grunch,

This is a really easy hand to play. Raise pre for value and because the relative strength of AK increases the less opponents we play against. This board is super good for AK and in general value-towning villains with hands like this is the easiest way to make money at the lowest stakes.

His play on the river is not OK at all. Most players do not throw away top pair. Many players will level themselves into thinking you might have a flush draw. I'd probably make a stronger bet but if you think a villain will call $50 50% of the time then you miss out on $25 of value by not betting here. That is very substantial at the 1/2 level.

How much will it take to get you to train me?

Not betting this river is a huge mistake. Not raising AK pre in a 1/2 game is a huge mistake.