1/2)
Hero (sb) $680: Mid 20s white guy. Been playing tag for the 2 hours Ive been at the table

Villain (bb) (covers) : seems to be playing mostly tag, but doesnt seem especially good. I've seen him overplay a hand multiway, and also tried 2 or 3 bluffs that didnt work. I doubled up through villain when i hit bottom set against his top pair.

2 Limps to Hero in the small blind with black QQ. I make it 14, villain in bb calls, 1 limper calls. I have villains range on A10+, 77+, maybe KQs.

Flop (~$45): 872hhh
I have no hearts and lead for 33 and villain calls, limper folds.

Turn ($111):3, not a heart
I lead for $70, villain calls
This is getting really messy, as Im trying to defend my hand to a flush draw, but theres always that possibility that Im drawing dead. Really didnt feel good about betting here, but should I really just give up when it was only 3 handed, and now its heads up? A flopped flush is pretty unlikely.

river ($251): K, not a heart
I know I need check here so I do. Villain reaches right away and puts 200 in. I think hes mostly repping the nut flush as he didnt raise at all on flop and turn. KhX has gotten there too. Villain hasnt been afraid to bluff so far, but his bluffs were in smaller pots than this. Hero?

Thoughts on all streets welcome. Curious if anyone checks the turn, or if we have to bet there.

Preflop looks fine.
Flop: I might make it 40-45, but 33 is fine.
Turn: looks fine to me.
River: Villain needs to have a pretty high bluff frequency to make this a profitable call (200 to win 451). I'm probably shaking my head and folding here. We have the times where he misses with A and we win. We have the times where he has slow played the nfd and we lose. We also have the times where he has a missed flush draw, but hits the king and we lose. Too many combinations of value hands for me to want to play QQ as a bluff catcher.

Pre:

K

Flop:

K

Turn:

K

River:

K... Is a bad card for us. I think the c/f is fine. He would be more polarized on a non K offsuit river. I'm expecting to see at least the K of hearts quite a bit. The odds we are getting are not that good as well.

He's going to be pretty polarized here... and there are significantly more FDs in his turn calling range than there are flopped flushes. I think it basically comes down to whether or not he would play a flopped set like this. If you're confident he would have raised flop or turn, this is a pretty easy call. I really doubt he has Kx when he makes a river bet that big that quickly.

Also, when you take this line on this run out I think it's pretty rare for you to have a hand that can call $200. I'm not folding.

Turn bet is good.

Villain pre-flop calling range is definitely wider, first of all he most likely calling with 22-66 to set mine. Do you also think he is folding QJs TJs?

This is a weird situation where I might consider making a tiny river bet, say 30-40$. Ed Miller explains this in 'Playing the Player'. Villain is calling the flop and turn bets. Both streets were good chances for a bluff raise to get you away from your hand. He likely had a naked Ace flush draw, but think about what cards he'd play with the A that are offsuit. It was 14$ to go, you said he's not particularly good, so he could be in here with the Ace and a small pair on the board. Kx is less likely unless it's KQ or KJ, but mostly I discount a naked Kh as sticking around for the draw.

If we put out a small blocker bet, we will get raised by better and we can fold and will get worse to call about 50% of the time since the price is too cheap for a fold. I think this is a great spot for a blocker bet, and would try it against this weak sounding V. Checking is certainly bad, because even an average V will see you don't have hearts and will try to bluff this river.

People will play this hand different ways, depending on what their EP range is, and what their strategy is in terms of betting or raising that range.

At a passive table, my EP range is all PP, AK, AJs+. Sometimes KQs, ATs, and AQo but maybe not here, depends on how aggressive villain is in terms of raising pre.

At 1/2, I would be betting an unbalanced value range of say JJ+,AK, maybe TT sometimes. So at the outset, my entire range is going to go bet/bet/bet unless something weird happens.

Unfortunately something weird did happen -- the monochrome flop with two people acting after me.

I think my default here would be to go bet/bet/bet with AhAx, AhKh. That's 1 combo for value, 3 for bluffs, which is plenty.

My check/calling range then would be KK,QQ,JJ, and the remaining combos of AK. I don't mind check/calling several of these against V2, who has a history of betting too much. Against this guy, I would call a flop bet any hand that has a heart, so that's 12 combos (I think), likewise the turn although I would probably chicken out and drop the jacks or AxKh depending on board texture.

We can debate about putting KK in the calling range, and whether to keep AxKh in the turn calling range, etc. But you know, I'm just not sure QcQs would make the cut. It would be cool if villains checked behind, but if either one bets, I'm not sure QsQc would be worth calling with. To me it depends on how often he bombs the turn. If he gives up on the turn a lot, it would be safe to call the flop. But if you're expecting two bets, better to have a heart I think.

It's tempting to bomb this board hoping for a couple of folds, but that's kind of a waste of equity.

I like BaconMaker strategy of a blocker bet. If he jams, or raises, instafold and like he said, you get worse to call.

AP, preflop, flop, turn, = good to go.