OP, you're basically on the right track, I just don't think you had a really great read on this guy. Don't listen to the guys giving you generic solutions applicable to the "average 1/2 fish"; your task to analyse the play of every guy at the table, and figure out how to get all their chips. It will be a different strategy for every one.

Taking a passive line against an aggro player can be effective, and it may be the only way to make money off a skilled LAG who has a fold button.

Remember,two questions. Is villain aggro? And does he have a fold button? Both have to apply to profit from a passive line. If he doesn't have a fold button, then you might as well bet, right? And if he does have a fold button, you don't really want to check/raise, do you?

Go back and read Daniel's comments. He's right, as usual.

I sense that you are struggling with getting folds when you bet, and to handle your frustration you make the adjustment of creating FPS type of lines to maybe get paid? Thats my first impression after reading this thread.

You have the right mindset when you are thinking of doing adjustments, but your are deploying wrong and not optimal adjustments in my mind.

Probably you play to tight/nitty of a range, or you only C-bet when you have it and check/give up when you whiff- and your opponents have caught up on this tendency.

If your villains are folding to much to you,so much that you cant get any action with valuehands-then the correct and more optimal adjustment will be to C-bet bluff more flops when you miss and probably also opening up your preflop raisingrange a bit to come across more active.

Maybe your 3 bet range also needs some tweeking? I dont know, just doing some reflection. The reason i mention all of this is because your overall agressionlevel in all aspects of the game play a part in whether you get paid off or not in fat value spots like this.

Hope this make sense to you OP. Ive had the same issues myself to work through, so i definetely have some experience on this topic. To illustrate what i am talking about: In this hand i easily fire 60-80 percent of the pot on every street with a bet-bet-bet line and get called down by worse A hands like A-10 or A-J-even A rag hands one pair hands.

Good stuff here ... You need to do whats best for that holding/board against that opponent. We can give some credit from knowing your opponent and trying to get the most value out of each hand. But please consider the full range of an opponents holdings when you make your assessments.

I dont really mind how you played this hand, even the c/r made your opponent pay for any draw he may have had. Can your opponents put you on a draw when you c/raise? If so, then great you can make this move without screaming 'ACE'.

As far as the River bet, please at least match your Turn bet. GL

You make a good point that a lot of 'level X' thinking is no good to you at 1/2 poker. You just need to be aware of who is at the table. Each hand is your 'story', you need to tell it in the best way possible to get the opponent to stay in the hand. GL

I appreciate the replies especially these last few. You guys gave me some good thing to think about. Admittedly, I may not have had the best "pure" read on said V. Sometimes I feel I rely more on feel, perception and people-reading. Part of the reason why I love live play is because of that component - a lot of subtle things you can pick up on and then the meta-level of if those subtleties were intended by the V or not.

Maybe I'm full of sh*t here regarding where I thought I stood in the hand. I don't know. It's hard to convey everything that takes place in the moment in a message board, especially body language. But at the very least, you guys gave me some good things to think about and better thought-processes to run through before deciding on potential lines to take.

I probably won't take this *EXACT* line again as it would appear to have been sub-optimal but there were some nice alternatives presented and frankly as dunder alluded to, the "right" circumstances to use this are probably somewhat rare meaning this is just one quiver in your arsenal that shouldn't be deployed all too often.

I hate this hand all the way through.

We only get $90 from the villain with our 'tricky' line.

Which really actually turns our hand pretty face up on the turn.

We could have accomplished he same thing by betting $20 into $25 the flop.
$30 into $65 the turn, and $40 into $145 the river and likely get calls.

Or if you want to get tricky, and let him be aggressive, we can get an extra bet in the hand by betting $20 into $25 the flop. Then check/min raise the turn, he bets $35-$40, we raise to $80, and then bet $95-$110 on the river. Then we get almost $200 off him on the hand, and he is always getting a great price to call our bets.

As played I'd likely bet the river for more, somewhere in the $65 range, maybe more depending how much villain likes to station.

Except why would a V with no pair and no draw call an 80% PSB on the flop? Where I play, I don't think V's would do that. And if he calls the $20 with Ax-little I think he would be very hesitant to call another $30 unimproved. At some point you have to know you're beat. If poker were really that easy everybody would be crushing $1/2 for $50/hr.

My reasoning as played was the only hands I am behind on the flop are AK and 66 and an off-chance at 22. By checking back the flop that pretty much eliminates AK from his range which I've now narrowed down to middle pairs and overcards. If there are any good threads floating around on the 'catching up' concept I'd like to give them a read.

He wouldn't, but he also has a pair often enough to call to make it profitable. Probably. You just happen to know his exact hand at this point and hindsight is 20/20

That said, as has been discussed, it really is v/situ dependent.

Think about it this way. What happens when the turn doesn't hit our v? He checks back and we've got not a single dollar in on 2 streets. Then what? Not to mention your sizing is really bad on both turn and river.

Think about how much value you miss in this hand if V has AJ/AT.

If you bet the flop and V folds then the opportunity cost is even as you haven't gotten any additional dollars anyway.

I'd imagine those hands would bet the flop, especially a V playing transparent ABC at which point I would call. The odds of the only two players in the hand flopping a pair of Aces is somewhere around 10% right? So 9/10 times I am going to be c-betting at someone without an Ace. As the PF raiser UTG now leading the flop on an Ace high board, how many times is V going to fold? 6? 8? 9?

I've been told to fold KK on an A high flop no questions asked in another thread I started when the V "donks" the A high flop. So we can't have our cake and eat it too. If a "donk" always means the V has it (absent of reads) then V has no reason to believe I don't have an Ace and has no reason to stay in a hand with an uncoordinated board with no straight or flush draws.

So much LoL. Apparently you do not know what a donk bet is.

Well, if you really play in games where players fold that easy and that often- i once again have to mention that you probably will boost your winrate through the roof by slowly tweeking your game into a more aggressive/active approach.

If you raise it up with KJ and the board comes down A-rag-rag. C-bet and earn the pot.Raise it up with 99 and the board comes K-3-6? C-bet and take down the pot, they wont call you without a king or better right? They will only call when they got top pair or better right and folding pretty much anything else? So C-betting a large percentage of the time versus those players will be huge +EV.

I would also start to investigate how they react to 3-betting preflop. Do they fold preflop? Wich one of your villains will fold to 3 bets preflop usually? Do they flat call and then easily fold to C-bets on the flop? Do they get more sticky in 3 bet pots? Those are some of the questions i want to get answered when i start to 3 bet these guys more liberally.

If they fold to 3 bets preflop i would start to abuse them with 3 bets in position, where you can control the action on every street if you do get called. The same thing if i sense its easy to get them to fold on the flop with a C-bet. Looking for big draws to semibluff with double barrelling.

The main thing is that i would turn up my general aggression level: as long as your villains play so nitty and folds easily. If or when you sense that your villains is opening up, gets more sticky and calling flop/turn barrells- then you of course is smart enough to readjust and rape them with valuebetting them to death.

Just some strategy food for thought

Many people have already said they don't hate the flop check, but checking the turn as well, the check-minraising and leading the river small are all bad, you lost value in this hand (as played raise the turn more if you're going to raise - they call $50 they'll call $70-$80, and leading the river so small when if they'll call $40 they'll call $80......), and you will lose in the long run in this same spot.

Another point is say you have KQs and raise pre and this flop comes down, are you cbetting? If so they you should be cbetting when you have it as well pretty often. If you're consistent then it will make V's job of reading you harder.

What is your go-to "value" line? I heard when in doubt, bet 2/3 on the flop, 1/2 on the turn and 1/3 on the river. I've been experimenting with 1/3 on the river lately when I am almost positive I am ahead and think the opponent is pretty weak and won't call a large bet but is priced in to call a 1/3 bet and have been getting a lot of calls. $80 into $120 seems a little big with a mid-pair but maybe I will try betting 1/2 - 2/3 on the river this weekend and see how it works out.

As to your second point, I try not to do anything 100% of the time as I feel any situation can be player dependent as well as something to be said for randomizing your actions so you are not as easy to read. KQs I would probably c-bet this 50% of the time and check 50%. It's a pretty bad flop for KQs OOP.

If the positions were reversed I may have c-bet my Ace after being checked to. I think it's a lot easier for an opponent to c/c a c-bet thinking you are just c-betting with air after being checked to than call a c-bet with nothing after you show aggression UTG PF and continued strength on the flop.

You know what people don't dig in this forum? When OP posts a hand and then rebuts every response by justifying why his line was better than suggested. Especially when responses seem to have consensus.

If most people would call the CR with any pair then shouldn't you be looking to exploit everyone under the sun HU with a min-raise CR whenever you have 9x or better here?

The problem with the turn c/r is not that they will fold to it, but that they will fold to a subsequent river bet.

If they would call the turn min c/r but then fold most rivers, we could make a lot more money just potting the turn/river.

Even in the hand posted, where he calls the river, we made less money. We got $50 on the turn and $40 on the river. $90 total. By pot/potting it we could make $25 on the turn and $75 on the river. $100 total.

But let's say we just pot the turn and bet $40 on the river, for $65 total. We make $25 less, but this is still probably better than the turn x/r because often, they don't bet the turn when they improve to a small pair.

Exactly. Why even bother posting?

As stated in OP villain is PASSIVE why would checking to a passive player ever be a good way to get chips in the pot? So many contradictions ITT.