This is my first post so please forgive any formatting errors or bad forum etiquette

Hero: 21 year old white kid, tight table image, stack $400

Villain: 40 year old white male. Not much information (only been in for a few orbits), only hands played had been strong starting hands. Appeared to be a good player, tight. Stack ~$250.

Hero has AKo in middle position, Villain is in BB. One loose limper in early position, Hero raises to $12. Villain re-raises to $40. Limper folds, Hero calls.

Flop: A, 9, 5 rainbow. Villain bets $45. Hero calls with pair of aces.

Turn: T. Villain checks, Hero checks behind

River: Q, no flush draw. Villain checks, Hero ????

I'll reply with how the hand finished after sufficient discussion. I'll note that I seriously considered folding preflop because of my limited read on him as a tight player, but I decided AKo was a very marginal but correct call.

Check behind on river. Your almost always winning when villain check to you on river, but it isn't clear you can get value from any worse hands. This looks like a standard situation where villain raised preflop, doesn't have an ace and c-bet flop. He gave up when you called the flop. There is a small chance villain is trapping with AQ/set but it is very small when you don't bet turn and he checks river.

Stack sizes make any further betting pot committing, so I would just check this back without a better read on villain. With a better read that hero can get called by worse or that villain is done with hand when they check, I like betting turn some of the time.

Pre is good. Tighter players can still have AQ/AJ/KQ in their 3bet range but will fold those hands to a 4bet. Mostly calling IP here.

Flop looks good too. You're obviously not folding, so it's between calling and raising. Calling lets him valueown himself with AQ/AJ on the turn/river or possibly barrel off w KQ or something.

On the turn I probably bet small to set up a river shove. We should be happy to get stacks in on this board in a 3bet pot (if not we should fold pre).

AP I'd bet the river 1/2 pot or something. Q is not the best card as AQ/QQ got there, but after you check the turn behind and villain checks river you have the best hand almost always. Villain's gonna c/c w AJ/KK/KQ/etc more often than some weird c/shove with AA/QQ/AQ. If he does c/r river... meh... it's probably a fold even though we'll be getting a good price.

No reason to ever check back the turn here. Bet like 75 on turn and jam river.

vs a random player, we can safely assume TT+, AQ+ is his 3bet range.

I'm betting turn for we still beat a lot of his range (JJ, QQ, KK, AQ) and behind only to TT.
If villain when x/c turn and check river. I might check back for QQ, AQ, TT beats us now and JJ would probably folded turn. we are only getting value from KK and if he check raises, we pretty much turning our hand to a bluff catcher.

AP, since he checked turn and river, I will bet ~55 for value. At this point, his KK is pretty much face up.

Grunch

Hero checks back. Lots of two-pair hands got there by the river, as did a set of QQ. I don't think KK calls here. This really smells like KK imo.

I'd prefer to b/f $100 on the turn.

pretty std turn bet

Bet whatever V will call with KK.

Oh yea, fold preflop as well. What range did you give the V for 3 betting to $40 preflop? You were smoked.

ding ding ding

it was KK.

Hero checked back on the river. I should have thought more about how obvious it was that it's KK, but I didn't have enough info on the guy. Maybe he likes trapping. The bet on the flop then check on the turn should have been a clear read that he has a busted high pocket pair.

My issue with how I played the hand was, I knew I was likely behind (put him on TT+ AQ+ like someone else said), and still put in $28 into a $55 pot. If I was only going to play out the hand if my A or K hit, why would I call on 35% odds if I didn't plan to bet for value if I hit my pair? Maybe I should have been betting the turn all the time.

Yeah I was scared to say that in the OP, thought I'd be called a nit, but I agree I should have folded pre. What raise would you have called? $35?

Depends of course. A minraise can be many things so I would consider calling there. With this villain the 3 bet range is very narrow, no matter the siziing.

I know bet sizing is irrelevant in putting him on a range, but there's still a bet size that has good odds for the price right? Or is a $10 min raise still a fold with AKo? I don't think so. I think a raise to $35 is the line, $40 was pushing it.

Couple thoughts:

-if you're going to take this line, then it's a clear fold preflop. The benefit of AK with position in a 3-bet pot is the extra bets and extra folds you can get from having position. Call-check-check extracts no value from your position.

-turn is a standard bet. Basically turns your hand face up and says "yes, I have ak. You may fold now." As a result, there are two spots where you would choose to check behind instead. (1) you have a tricky opponent who will consider a bluff check raise and force a fold from your ak, (2) you have a tight opponent who will virtually always fold to this bet.

-in either of those cases, you check the turn in order to extract a river bet. If opponent isn't going to bet the river, then he has a check-calling or check-folding hand. Bet 50 and hope for the crying call. If he raises, you quietly fold and take note that the guy REALLY likes check raising.

I like your analysis here. I felt really bad about how I played this hand after my session. This was the only hand I feel like I lost a lot of value on. I'm a recreational player but I've grinded the micros on stars for some profit. I'm not used to the live playstyle because I used to just consider each individual decision and assess the mathematics of the move. Playing live I realize I have to play my opponents more, and base my decisions more on the entire hand "line" as opposed to each individual move. I'm not 20 tabling the mouth breathers.

AQ+ 1010+ is a very generous 3bet range for a live 1/2 villain. Most have a 3bet range of KK+

I mean, don't feel *too* bad about it. More often than not, villain is folding to the turn/river bet. You missed one street of small value. If that's the biggest error of the day... start bluffing more, make some more errors!

well I was only playing with 1 BI that day so I wanted to play tight. lower variance for similar ROI yknow?

Sounds like you are coming from a tournament perspective. ROI isn't discussed in cash games because it doesn't really make sense. You don't make a fixed initial investment in one game; you buy in initially for a variable amount, and can rebuy for variable amounts later. Big blinds won per hr or 100 hands are the statistics people use to measure success in cash games. What this means is that to be successful in cash games, you should have multiple buyins available. Because you can rebuy, you should pursue smaller edges. If you just want to play for fun, sure, go one and done, but playing a cash game like a tournament is not a recipe for success.