This is my first hand history. Low on suspense (wouldn't be posting if I won this hand), but please help me understand where and to what degree I went wrong with my bet-sizing and hand-reading (I will post my river hand-read with the results after the swelling goes down from discussing my bets).

UTG+2 (~180) weak-passive white female 30s. Rich player who never has it.
VILLAIN (235) black male mid-20s. Plays a fair number of mostly small pots and has showed down some TPTK and two-pair hands.
CO (~110) asian male late-20s. Stack swinging between 100 and 300 as he plays pot after pot with all sorts of hands.
HJ (~200) asian male 30s. Recently rebought after gettiing stacked with top pair against a straight. Only player who arrived after me.
HERO (295) white male 40s. Clumsy with chips, obvious newb. Played nitty first 90 minutes, then started picking on three observed weak-passive players. Only showed down one hand, two pair.

History: earlier in the day at a different casino, HERO folded a small boat (held 77 on an x78x8 board) to a river raise. Was afraid of a bigger boat; villain later told me he had a runner-runner flush.

UTG+2 opens to 8 (low end of standard at table).
Folds to VILLAIN who calls in mid position.
CO and HJ call.
Folds to HERO holding 5 5. With four opponents and only the cutoff playing a short stack I felt I had good odds to set-mine, so I called.
BB folds.

Flop (36) K 5 7

I hit my set and have read that one doesn't slow-play sets at 1-2. Kept bet fairly small in case I got raised by a higher set, but not sure how I would have reacted to different raises on this street. I probably would have called a min-raise but maybe folded to a bigger raise. Did I lose this hand on this street?

Hero donks 25. UTG+2 folds. Villain calls. CO calls. HJ folds.

Turn (110) K 5 7 2

Felt this card was neutral and didn't help opponents unless they were chasing flush draws. Assumed I was ahead, bet 1/3 pot to keep building a pot.

Hero bets 40. Villain calls. CO folds.

River (190) K 5 7 2 7

Holy crap, it's 3am, I'm in Vegas and I rivered a full house. Not folding two boats in one day! Get money in!

Hero bets 80. Villain, speaking very quietly, declares all in for his remaining 162. Hero?

standard cooler, man. I don't think there's any way anyone can tell you that you misplayed this. his river raise is somewhat concerning, after you've bet every street though. but I'm not good enough to check the river and fold if he shoves, so maybe someone with better hand reading skills can tell you otherwise. this could easily be AK trying to pull a move as well as a badly played pair of aces. I assume he had K7 that got lucky on you. if you play this hand over and over you win lots in the long run. don't concern yourself with the result, if he had quads or something there's no way you're throwing it away.

although I would have bet more on the turn. probably something like $75 to make him commit to the pot.

So you lost to quads, kings full, 7/5 or K7. It happens. I think you are looking for sympathy more than advice. And this board is low on sympathy since we have all had this happen to us many times.

The question I ask you is this. If you shoved on the flop (a bad move), would villain have folded. Answer is probably no.

If you shoved on turn would villain have folded. Answer is probably no.

If you checked it down to the river (bad play) would you have lost less? Maybe.

So to me it looks like you were destined to take a beating.

Snap-call. If you get coolered, take your lumps and suck it up.

I played this hand a couple of weeks ago, and you better believe I wanted sympathy at the time!

But my reason for posting today is to find out who if anybody objects to my opening the flop or the amount of my bet. I suppose I should have ended my HH there. Sorry, I'm new.

You played the hand fine. Some really good players will claim they can fold to the shove on the river. And maybe, if I knew the player very well, and had a great read (hand of doom on my shoulder), I could delay calling for five minutes instead of insta call.

Almost everyone on this low stakes forum will get coolered on this hand.

I think the more important thing is you may be playing under-rolled. The reason I say this is because you should have a large enough bank roll so that losing a buy in does not seem so bad.

Sorry to say but you've flop a set and play it scared. There's nothing any of us can tell you because you don't gave the genes for NL. Why are you afraid of?
Never slow play a flopped set! Nobody knows you have a monster anyway, therefore, it is stupid to conceal the strength of your hand. Backing off to a raise and then check-raising on the turn is a valid strategy (although not necessarily best). I do not back off when there is a third suited card on board. I feel that I have enough outs to disregard the possibility of a made flush against me. If you lose with a set, you'll lose lots of money. If you don't, you are not playing your sets correctly.

AT

On the turn, instead of 1/3 bet 2/3 atleast.

After flopping that set, you should be thinking "how can I start getting my money into this pot, and fast". Probability of flopping set over set (or set under set in this case) is very rare. I think the flop bet $25 into about $35 after rake is pretty good. I might have even made it like $20 to keep random weak kings in.

It's a cooler.

Also, I'm never folding middle or bottom boat with a pair in my hand unless I have an airtight read.

There are not monsters under the bed...

Scared money is dead money. Grow a pair.

Grow a pair? lol, lol,...
You got it right, pardner

AT,

You need to bet more on the turn for max value. Bet/call river without a doubt.

Bet bigger OTT imo.

Preflop looks obvious.

I also like the donk flop bet, let's start building that pot.

I bet way more on the turn now that the flush draw has shown up, probably 3/4 of the pot; I'm definitely not betting less than 1/2. Also sets us up for a way easier river shove.

I shove the river. As played, pretty easy call.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Call river obv. Bet sizing should be larger OTT so u can shove OTR.

Preflop is fine.

OTF, being 5 handed X/R is a possibility I think. How have the players in the hand been playing OTF? Does the OR always CB? Do you think the CO or HJ will stab if it's checked to them? You should very rarely be B/F this flop imo. The OR folded so the only possible hand that beats you is 77 because don't you think that anyone else would have 3b KK pre? You should be forming a plan to get as many chips in the pot as quickly as possible. A X/R might possibly do that but it could also look really strong if you've been playing pretty nitty all night.

OTT, as others have said your bet is much to small. I'd probably go $70 to $90 considering there are still 2 villains here I would expect to get action from at least one of them because, as you said, it's a blank turn. You want to be playing for stacks so you should be figuring out the easiest way to get all the chips in the pot. If villain has 77, oh well, nh, reload, and continue playing (coolers suck and it would be understandable to just call it a night at this point though). Sure there are some river cards that you don't love seeing but you very likely have the best hand now so go for value and bet bigger to set up a nice easy river shove.

OTR, 7 isn't the greatest card in the world but B/F is super bad as we've crossed the commitment threshold (putting in ~50% of our stack as played) so if you're betting you have to call. Shoving is certainly an option here because do you really think villain is likely to reshove over you with a worse hand? I think he's more likely to call a shove with a worse hand than he is to reshove with a worse hand . If you were really afraid of a better boat then I suppose X/C is an option but he'll probably just shove anyway and he could check back Kx or whatever and then you lose value. You're more likely to lose value against the hands that you beat and still lose the pot to hands that rivered you so if you X/C so just shoving is probably best. Even as played there's less than a PSB left so you can still shove there.

Cliffs:

Call pre

Either donk or X/R OTF (which I think is the most interesting spot for discussion)

Bet bigger OTT

Shove OTR

Thanks for all of the responses, folks.

The mentions of scared money are on point. This was one of my first sessions and I didn't yet know how I would handle losing a big pot.

I posted mainly because I doubted my flop play. This question in particular has helped me sort out why and what I would have been happier with.

What I was afraid of was that if I checked the flop someone else would bet 20 and there would be two callers and it would come around to me and I wouldn't know who had a K, who had two pair, etc. So I donked to thin the field.

I think now a better flop play would have been to check-raise the flop. In the above example with a bet of 20 and a caller or two, I'd raise to 120 with the plan to shove to a re-reaise or open-shove the turn on a call.

Sounds like you're looking for some sort of result-oriented line to NOT lose, even though you flopped a monster.

Need to change that mindset quick, or stop playing poker.

No,
When you flop a set you don't bet to thin the field. With a flopped set you want lots of action and you also want all the dudes to come after you. You don't care about any draw and you don't care about how many dudes are in the pot. The more the better because you've got the best odds to get paid off. If they try do draw to a flush or straight is doesn't matter because some of their outs will pair the board and make you a full house. Don't you know all this by now?
The only time when we bet with the intention to thin the field is when we have a vulnerable hand like TPTK or an overpair like AA or KK or any other combo for one pair. With a set you want to build the pot in such a way as to have a situation on the river that you will go all in and they are already committed and be "obligated" to call.

AT,

Why on earth would you check raise a 20 dollar bet and a call on the flop with what is essentially the nuts (in reality its just a hand you are never getting away from) and shove the turn? Yeah every once in a while some people are bad enough to put their money in dead, but in the long run you want to be thinking about three streets of value and keeping hands like KQ in

Care to recommend a flop play, poke4fun?

Perhaps re-read the responses to this thread; I believe everyone is totally cool with your flop donk (there was only one possible suggestion for maybe check/raising the flop, but I think most would rather you just donk).

Plus reread AT's notes above regarding what our goal is when we flop a set. Thinning the field ain't one of them; we want as much action as possible.

nh, unlucky. wouldn't think about this hand very long, set over set is very rare shake it off.

There is only one flop play here: don't fold.

I like donking, but c/r, c/c (meh) can all have merits in the field. Don't fold.

The donk is fine but its purpose is certainly not to thin the field; it's because you flopped a premium strength non-vulnerable hand on a dry board and want to start building a pot. If you could guarantee that the preflop raiser would fire a continuation bet on this board and that you would get multiple callers, that's an ideal situation as we can then fire out a raise and play for a huge pot when we have a hand that is almost certainly best. However the flop being checked around would be pretty terrible, so there's plenty of merit in betting out.

We are never ever ever folding to a raise on this flop for these stacks against these opponents. Put it this way, I've played over 1.1 million hands of poker (and been a consistent winner for many years) and have folded a set on the flop exactly once in my life.

Your turn bet is very small. You got two callers to your flop bet on a dry board, it's a safe bet that one or both of them has a king and is unlikely to let go of it for cheap. You've hit one of the best possible cards in the deck. You want to fire out a bet that best sets up a river shove presuming one caller. $75 should do nicely: with one caller that would leave villain with about $130 or so and swell the pot up to $260. Then you can just shove the river.

As played it's not exactly a happy spot actually as villain is repping very very strong, but it's also very possible that he has a hand like A7 or even a butchered AK and is just failing to contemplate the possibility that he's beat. The pretty ridiculous pot odds we're being offered make this a trivial call. If you're beat, it's just bad luck.

You seem very much like a scared money player.