1/2, $200 effective, 9 handed. This hand was literally the first hand of the session at a brand new table and villain is a complete unknown, but is a MAWG dressed casually.

OTTH

Action is folded to hero in HJ who opens A K $10 and only villain in BB calls.

Flop ($21): A 7 2. Villain checks, hero bets $10 and villain calls.

Turn ($41): 3. Villain checks and hero checks. Normally I would've continued here for $20, but I have started to test out a new line of betting the flop with my TPTK hands, checking turns that don't improve us, or our range, and then betting the river, inspired by Sklansky's new book and other posters on the in the low stress strat thread who endorsed the idea. Is this a bad time to take this line considering how bone dry the board is and the fact that we can likely get three small streets of value with our hand if villain has an A?

River ($41): 9. Villain bets $25. I feel like this is pretty borderline. If he bets $30, I think it's just a call, but if he bets $20, I think we should raise, and feel like $25 is pretty gray. Villain being an unknown makes this more difficult.

First hand of session, readless isn't a time to get creative imo. Bet bet bet, get 3 streets and profit.

As played I just call.

This isn't the time to check the turn, IMO. Just go small for 3 streets and get good value from another A.

AP, I don't mind a river minraise. Just make sure you're ready to fold if he comes over the top.

Bet bet bet. Live 1/2 is a game almost entirely about value betting, and recs don’t go to the casino to fold top pairs.

A723r is not a board to be checking back AK on, we want to extract max value from Ax and the turn bet is 100% necessary as it allows us to make a bigger bet on the river

I see the reasoning but I think that applies to where TPGK can't run three streets or even two without getting thin, so it's better to show weakness and get value from V's air and worse pairs and not risk facing a raise which would force us to either fold top pair or play an uncomfortably large pot with one pair.

AK on this board is the effective nuts; same absolute strength, much stronger relative strength

Check weaker aces ott here, not AK

Your turn c-bet shouldn't go way down on bricks. I'm not sure who suggests checking back brick turns as the last aggressor, but you shouldn't be with something this high in your range. Live players just aren't going to find enough worse value bets or bluffs to incentivize your line in general and definitely not on A723r so you're just missing tons of value with a very clear three street hand. Nothing that value bets river won't call turn, a pair weaker than Ax is probably checking for showdown rather than bluffing and people just don't float OOP on A-high boards against the PFR with air.

I think for sure bet/bet/bet and folding to aggression is the way to go. I like a bigger flop bet (15) as it sets up a bigger pot for future streets and 1/2 villians will be inelastic between a $10 and $15 bet.
Edit: forgot to mention, as played I raise river to 70-80

Yeah, looks like Sklansky's book is doing more harm to my game than good

Pot control should be used when: 1) Getting raised puts us in a tough spot. 2) We will have difficulty going for 3 streets of value. 3) We want to potentially induce a bluff later. 4) We want to balance our play to make ourselves more difficult to play for tougher/thinking opponents.

None of these are applicable in a readless situation @ $1/$2. Getting raised is not a tough spot, it's a trivial fold against a random. We can go for 3 streets of value on any non 4/5 river. Villain has little to no bluffing hands after calling a bet on an A72r flop. Balance is irrelevant in this situation. Bet $25-30 on this turn. Look to bet nearly every river. I'd say the same if we held AQ.

As played, Raise to $65.

I think you'd get different advice in a 10/20 game 200 bb deep.

As I mentioned to you earlier, I found this Sklansky book to be useful theoretically but it's very difficult to apply balance-GTO concepts to the basic exploitative play that works at 1/2 100 bb deep.