table is very loose passive preflop. postflop pots have been fairly large. villain in this hand is pretty loose preflop and is stuck 150BB at this point. villain likely views me as TAG as i havent played many pots but have been aggressive in the ones i have played.

we both start 300$ deep

limps in 3 spots sb calls i raise AQ to 15 from BB villain calls MP2

flop (32) A107

Hero bets 22
villain tanks and out of my peripheral vision i can see him with a somewhat look of disgust. does not appear to be an act. picks his cards up like hes going to fold while hes looking at them, puts them back down and calls. the tanking was about 20 seconds

turn (76) 4

i opt to block here and see what he does. I did not think he was calling the flop with a draw given the amount of time but i could be wrong. it could have been in relation to my bet size and not getting the correct price.

hero bets $35
villain calls rather quickly. Im thinking he has a pair and a draw now or maybe he really did have the weak draw like 65.

river (146) 3

what is our line here? I'll post my action and thoughts after some discussion

Either b/f or c/c should be good here. If you go for a b/f, though, don't make it a small one, or it might induce, esp after the small turn bet. With a stuck and possibly tilty V, I think c/c is better, but that depends on whether he bets a wider range than he calls. Given the action and the board, that seems likely, but it depends on how passive he is.

im not 100% sure on his tility ness. he bought in $300 on his first buy played a few hands, then down to $80-100 (dont remember his exact stack size) he limps AA preflop and gets it in on some QQx board when the guy obv had a Q.

On the river, it feels like a way behind/way in front type of situation. By his flop tanking behaviour (assuming your read is correct and he's not hollywood-ing), a draw is more likely, like 98 (the quick turn calling for the flush draw hints this). I think a hand like 65 like you proposed is unlikely (unless he's super tilted) because that wouldn't even give him a gutshot on the flop.

Because he seemed confused on the flop, Ax is less likely and that is the only hand that you beat that will call a river bet. I would check/call maximum $80 on the river.

Isn't it always?

This makes me want to b/f the river and size my bet as if villain has a hand like JJx. So I'm betting around $45 here.

I'm not worried about this small sized bet/fold getting exploited. Most 1-2 players don't have the guts to make a move (actually most probably don't even think of that option, they just play their hand). Plus, villain had a chance to exploit our weak turn bet and he declined, so I'm not worried about him bluff-raising the river.

I disagree with bolded as I believe most live players are snap calling with any big draw on the flop FD/OESD.

I think the sincere tank flop call is more indicative of a gutshot, Tx, a hand like JJ, 7x. And then, like you and others have pointed out, the turn snap call most likely means that marginal flop call picked up a diamond draw.

River play: Now a lot of that range missed everything by the river, and 7x probably isn't even calling a 1/3 pot bet. So on the river, assuming we don't have to worry about a bluff-raise, it's between betting small to target hands like JJ/Tx or check/calling and snapping off bluffs. In my previous post I advocated bet/folding attacking JJ/Tx, but that could easily be bad advice if villain has a decent bluffing frequency in this spot. In fact, given that this villain is already down a lot of money, and thus probably more likely to bluff, I suspect check/calling the river is probably better.

So yeah, I'm now going against my previous post, lol. I should've read the OP better (I somehow missed that villain is down alot).

But either way, imo, it's close between bet 1/3 pot or check/call.

I decided to block again, and bet 35. In retrospect I wish I bet 45, because he sat for about 5 seconds and grabbed a stack of 60 and pushed it out. I can't remember if he said raise or not but I wasn't going to try and angle him into only a call. But it's just so rare that he has air when he min raises the river that I decided to fold. I'm getting like 7:1 and felt so dirty folding but I know he's not turning a value hand into a bluff so it's either air or 2 pair plus, and I think it's air rarely. Thoughts on river as played.

anyone? thoughts on river as played? given the small bet size and the min raise, are we ever calling here?