Hero recently sat down at table. Effective stacks of $200. Only read on V so far is that he is a MAWG, limp happy, open limps UTG, haven't observed him raise yet pre yet, but probably playing 30-40% of hands.

UTG limps
Hero raises to $12 with AQ in EP
V calls in MP
Folds around

Pot: ~$27

Flop: 8 3 2

Hero checks
V bets $15
Hero calls $15

I often check these types of flops OOP heads-up as this doesn't strike me as a particularly good board to c-bet. Should I be auto-c-betting here?

Pot: ~$55

Turn: Q

Hero bets $30
V raises to $60
Hero thinks for 5-10 seconds and calls $60

My default goes to "get to a cheap showdown" in these situations but it clouds my judgement on the river.

Pot: ~$175

River: T

Hero thinks for a bit and decides to ... ?

Please elaborate on your decision to check/call or bet for value here. How should I be thinking about this situation in the future? Is it too villain dependent "it depends" to give a somewhat standard answer?

I feel like I often make the wrong decision in these types of spots. Another reason being OOP sucks.

against a guy who is limp/calling to hit a flop this is a good flop to cbet. There are a lot of broadways that can hit the turn and river as you are not always going to take it down with one bullet anyway since med PP's will probably be calling.

If I am checking the flop it's not to c/c its to c/f

His minraise on the turn by a weak player is very strong. You check called him on the flop (which also looks strong) and called a minraise. As played I would check and evaluate his river sizing.

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I would just c-bet flop or C/F. Do you think he's someone who tries to steal often when checked to?

AP, definitely not leading river after V's turn raise. Check-calling or check-folding depending on size. Against most V's B/F-ing turn is the way to go because they're only raising when they can beat TP...and he raised. Since he only min-raised, I'd flat and check-eval river.

This is a pretty bloated pot for a 1 pair hand and that's before any money has gone in on the river.

He actually cold-called this one rather than limp/called since he had position on me. Intuitively, I would think that makes his range stronger than his limp-call range, so wanted to see how he would react. Though I guess a c-bet doesn't hurt here in a vacuum.

This was kind of my thought process. I doubt 83, 82 or 32 are in his cold-call range in EP/MP so we are only really fearing 18 combos of sets and the unlikely combos of KK/QQ, though his min-raise threw me for a loop. I still don't have a good enough lock on what I think a min-raise is, I see people do it with the nuts, I see them do it with air, I see them do it with 2 pair, it's just an all around strange way to proceed in a hand.

I ended up checking the river after tanking for a good 30-45 seconds, though I was really struggling to put him on a hand that I was behind. Would V bet the flop with a set on a dry and relatively unconnected board? He doesn't really have anything to fear and if my range is broadway heavy he is going to win some money if I hit on the turn, which led me to range him on mostly mid-PP's.

Definitely C-betting this flop. What's not to like? It's a rainbow. It missed a generic cold calling range by a mile. If I were going to invest $15, it would be with a c-bet rather than c/c. I don't understand what your plan was for calling.

No way I'm leading this river. Min raises on the turn are usually pretty strong. I'm expecting to behind on the river a decent amount of the time here.

I actually would cbet this flop some of the time. It's semi-connected but not rediculously so. There are no flush draws that can call. Villain may not fold medium pps but OTT in additioin to an A or Q we should be able to double barrel a K or J fairly effectively do get him off of small pieces of the flop or pocket pairs.

At the same time we are out of position. Nothing wrong with chk/folding. When it checks through we can bet a lot of turns and take the pot... frequently it will be with the best hand.

As for this hand I'm folding the flop a fair amount of the time unless I am reverse floating to steal the river. I'm not calling a flop bet to try and hit the turn.

As played, I certainly am betting the Q OTT. When v min raises the turn I have to pause though. There was no FD on the flop. If he flopped one pair a big overcard just fell that should hit our range, we bet and he raised. He's repping 2p+. If I assume his preflop passivity translates to post flop passivity He should have what he's repping a fair amount.

There are some hands we are ahead of like A8ss and 45ss for example that picked up equity on the turn.

A turn check raise from the average loose passive is usually going to be ahead of one pair and my default is usually Bet/Fold. However we haz TPTK and it's a small raise so I don't know I guess we hafta call a bet here.

OTR - lacking any special reads - I don't see how we can bet for value against a player who bet the flop then check raised us OTT when an overcard to the flop fell.

I think we just check/fold. Few villains are firing 3 barrels. If he was bluffing/button clicking worse hands or trying to get us off AK, he will usually shut it down or take a showdown now.

If however we think he's got some bluffs in his range (and I'm not sure why we would be thinking that) he's not calling a river bet rather he's folding or (rarely) raising as a bluff. I don't think we are prepared to call a river raise and we don't make any money when he folds so check/call seems appropriate.

Thanks for the replies everyone. cAmmAndo, pretty in depth stuff there. I think I will start c-betting these HU more often, though to a player paying attention, it just reeks of missed overs meaning you will have to double-barrel more often than not (and sometimes triple barrel shove when ~100 BB's deep).

Results

Grunch.

Pre is fine, flop is fine, this is a good flop to c-bet bluff. Turn is fine, I probably fold to the min-raise. His line looks super-strong: flat a dry flop, min-raise a good barreling card. He's not flatting the flop with KQ/QJ and outside of Q8, all he has in his range are sets when he raises the turn.

As played, the river is check/fold. But IMO, you should fold the turn.

Why are sets "incredibly unlikely"? He bet flop, min-raised turn. Min-raises have been more nutty than "let's see where I'm at", IME.

Don't be results oriented. You don't know if he'd call another bet anyway. If he raised turn to "see where he's at" and you called, he should be done with the hand anyway meaning if that was his reason for raising (you'd only call the raise w a hand that can beat JJ), he got his answer and shouldn't be calling anymore bets anyway.

I always try to figure out what the thought process of V is. Did he think he was bluffing turn? Did he think you'd call with a hand worse than JJ? Did he min-raise to freeze you on the river and get to a cheap showdown? The info from this hand turns into reads to use to guide your decisions in future hands.

Even if he is never folding better we are folding out his equity when he has like j10, we generally have decent equity when we are behind and we do well against the range of hands he may decide to float with.

Maybe "incredibly unlikely" was too strong, but I would think a typical 1/2 rec player gets cheeky and slow plays a set on a dry board like this to give me a chance to catch up.

If most players are check/folding the flop in my position, what is his incentive to bet a set on the flop when almost no turn card can hurt him?

TBH, I'm not check/folding flop very often HU. I c-bet high % of the time HU and more than 1/2 of the time 3-way. We raise pre w big cards to narrow the field and give ourselves fold equity post flop. I'm going to try to use it most of the time.