V (300) - 35 yo white male, seems somewhat aware of basic strategy. Has made a couple comments under his breath about other players' play, mumbled something about "teaching" when one player evaluated anothers play in a particular hand. Has raised to $20 over several limpers when he was in the blinds and shown down rags twice. Said something about how he's "only played poker for 3 months but that's the first time I've seen that." Saw him call down with the second nut flush on a 4-flush board, against an OMC who clearly had the nuts. He's been somewhat aggressive and has taken down a lot of small/medium pots without SD. I've seen him isolate and raise a small donk bet OTF with air. V is the straddle this hand.

Hero's Image (575) - 26 yo white male, TAG - It's clear V respects me and thinks of me as a solid player. We're sitting next to each other and he's made some little comments after hands to suggest he respects my game. This table has been pretty loose/passive and I've been playing fairly straightforward.

Hero is UTG with AK and raises to $16, folds to V who calls.

Flop ($35): J76

V checks, Hero checks.

Turn ($35): K

V checks, Hero bets $25, V raises to $75, Hero?

I feel as if I've played my hand a bit face-up here. Not sure if he would make a move to push me off AK/KQ here. Generally I don't see players at 1/2 making those kinds of moves but since he views me as solid, he may think I'm a good target for such a play. One minor note for a live read - he instantly checked both streets. And he verbally announced "seventy-five" before putting the chips out.

Call turn, fold river, you have spazz/scared equity and villain will shut down with bluffs a lot because he's afraid of you.

This.

Yes.

After going check/check on the flop, this could be a play to steal the pot from you, but we do have TPTK, so call and evaluate river.

We check back a flop that misses us generally, then bet a card that should be right in our wheel house, so we should be stronger here, and get check raised, and we want to continue?

I'm folding.

If we C-bet the flop, we might avoid this situation.

But as played, let's summarize.

We raised AK and (after missing the flop and acting weak by checking) we hit our hand. We probably don't want to fold AK when we hit our hand and bet it, otherwise why did we raise with it?

What did Villain call the pre-flop raise with?

Sometimes he has Kx here.

He is aggressive enough to sometimes have air here.

He is aware enough to put us on a steal here.

He is probably cautious enough to check the river unless he already has AA, two pair or a set, and we would have heard from AA preflop.

His range includes many hands that we beat.

We should strongly consider calling the turn check-raise.

Good level 2 thinking. Lets jump to level 3 for a sec. We raised preflop. What does v put us on? Probably big pairs and big cards. We check back a J high flop. Now what does he put us on? Probably AK/AQ/KQ/TT, and maybe JJ. Now the K rolls off and we bet. Now what? Probably just hit our AK/KQ or decided to stop slowplaying the nuts. To anyone who can read hands we almost always have top pair+ and he is raising. Why?

Also, he knows that when we check back this flop we have missed overs a lot. He knows we are betting this turn close to 100% If he had a set why would he bet it here when he can c/r?

This hand is vastly different depending on which level youre on. Against a semi good player im going to stay on level 3 and realize my hand is face up and he is coming at me. Im folding turn.

This was exactly my thought process during the hand. I did end up folding. I also wondered for a second if he was on level four and knew that I knew all of this so that I should fold, but I think that's pretty unlikely.

This guy has been playing three months and is leveling us? Or was that just nonsense

Wait so he's checking a set or two pair twice to us with straight and flush draws out there? I think we out leveled ourself in this hand, I'm calling and re eval turn.