Villain - ZERO history with this V. 20ish male, quiet, glasses, has a douchey haircut where it's long on top and the sides are shaved, business casual dress (like he just got off of work), sitting a foot or so back from the table with his legs crossed (in a position where if I don't carefully conceal my cards, he definitely has the perfect angle to see my holdings). He's limped a few times and raised to like $16 a couple times in the last hour I've been sitting here. This is the first decent sized hand we've played together.
Pre = Button straddles to $6 and 4 players (including V) limp to me. Hero makes it $50 with 10s10d. Folds around to V who patiently and deliberately puts $50 across the line. V has approx. $350 behind. After he called my raise, the thought of "did he see my cards?" crossed my mind.
You're WA/WB and the flop is pretty dry for a 3-bet pot. I'd check it back, planning to go for a delayed c-bet if checked to again, or likely foldint to a decent sized donk.
I don't hate a half-pot c-bet with the intention of b/f.
Perfect flop to downbet. If you bet too big only better hands will continue, but if you check you can be put in some gross spots on turn and river. Bet 35 and he likely calls and checks to you again on the turn.
I think preflop is either raise big like we did or just overlimp to setmine, so I'm cool with our choice. Yeah, make sure he can't see our cards.
I would mostly cbet here thanks to our hand being very vulnerable if it is good (a bunch of horrible looking overcards on the turn). If it was less vulnerable then the more we could simply check it back (such as QQ which is more WA/WB than TT). I'd probably go no more than $60 on this fairly dry board and hope that gets the job done.
If he calls I probably check back non set turns and then make a river decision as to whether I should call a bet.
ETA: Cool with smaller cbets as others have suggested too. I'm now checking back the turn and soul reading any river bets. He hasn't gotten out-of-hand yet and board ain't that drawy (likely not too many busted draws to bluff) so I would probably lean to the foldy end of things; he also can't take our check back on the turn as non-Kx/AA since Kx/AA can check back when the second pair pairs.
+1 and also like the 1/2 pot c-bet on flop too. Certainly don't want to give a hand like QJ/AJ to beat you. Can also get value from 99/88/55 and make 98/45 pay to draw.
Note: Hero has been pretty much staring at V the entire hand, starting pre after the action folded around to him. Hero notices, as he checks back the turn, V makes a very subtle wince/frowny face. Now V knew I was watching him, but was he acting here or not...that's the question.
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Pot $240
River: 9c
Board: Ks 6h 7c 7s 9c
V thinks for about 15 seconds and slides out $100 stack of reds. Sigh....
I think hand has been well played up until this point. Hopefully you were being very subtle when you were looking at him and not full-on staring / daggers at him (bad for the game / vibe / environment, this ain't high stakes TV).
If he's done nothing of note so far (like getting in any real chips postflop) I probably mostly sigh fold the river. There's very few busted draws he can be bluffing (54?) and even some of those draws got there with a showdownable hand that have no reason to bluff (i.e. T9 is usually pretty happy to hope for a free showdown against our AQ). It's admittedly a very good price, but often that's just looking to get paid off.
In a local 1/3 card game, I'm not giving the villain credit for playing level 3 poker. He doesn't even know you're thinking about his hand. This looks like a suck bet from someone who figures you have an under pair and wants to give a decent price to have you call. If he wanted a fold, he'd bet more.
As Mike Caro said, when your opponent wants you to do something, disappoint him. Fold.
Hand was played fine, though I think checking flop would also be a reasonable line. Kinda hard to find many bluffs for V, so I'd fold river against an unknown.
