So my New Year's resolution was to improve my poker play. I've come up with a plan to post at least one hand per session for feedback. I know I've got enough holes in my game and thinking process to make Dgiharris's head explode, but I figure this is one of the best ways to learn.

Villian in this hand is a younger kid, maybe 24-25. I've only recently arrived at the table, but I've only seen him play one hand in three or so orbits and that was a limp in a MW pot. He could be a nit, or he could just be card dead. Judging from his stack, he seems to be doing quiet well.

Hero has only recently sat down. I've only played two hands to this point, neither of them amounting to much.

Hero (B): ~200
Villian(MP1): ~550

Utg limps and Villian raises to $12 and it folds to Hero with AJ. I call and the rest fold.

Flop (~$29): J 4 4

Villian bets $20. I call.

Turn (~$69): 8

Villian bets $50. Hero?

As tight as villian has been, I'm not entirely comfortable with this spot. However, if I call him here, what do I do if he puts me in on the river? Should I have folded, or raised at any point?

I call begrudgingly on the turn and hope he checks the river. Obviously he can have QQ+ here, but a lot of the time its going to be AJ,KJ,QJ,J10. Sometimes even AKc.

Like you said its not a comfortable spot, but I call the turn and reevaluate, if he shoves you all in for ~$120 then I would definitely consider folding, but maybe that's a leak.

I probably fold preflop here, because this is the exact spot I'm looking to avoid. Top pair is going to be really tough to play, even in position against this guy. You have pretty big reverse implied odds here as the times the pot does get built up you are likely dominated. When you hit and he doesn't, you're not going to be able to extract much from him. You called him on the flop, and there are no draws here so he knows you've almost always got a pair. He's firing bets at you like he doesn't care, so I think this is an overpair about 90% of the time, with the other 10% being mostly another AJ.

As played I think turn is a great spot to shove. Villain most likely has an overpair and I think you have some pretty sweet fold equity as it makes your hand look like JJ/88,4x. It's totally turning TPTK into a bluff, but I think it's a good spot to do it if you have the guts.

I dunno about the shove... wouldn't KJ QJ and all the hands you have dominated gonna fold? Is he really going to fold QQ or KK in this spot? I don't see much fold equity.

I'm not expecting someone who played 1 hand in 3 orbits to have a J weaker than AJ here very often. It's possible, but even then I think he slows down on a lot of rivers anyways, so if that's the case there's not much more to be made aside from his $50 bet. If I call down here I'm expecting to be chopping/crushed a lot more often than I'm winning.

When playing against someone who is probably not a megafish, I like to flip the hand around and imagine what I would do with AA facing a shove vs. an unknown on that board. I'd probably fold, and I'm sure that's what most people here would say to do. If I'm wrong, let me know, and we'll talk about it. It just seems like a good bluff spot. There's only one combo of JJ out there. That and 88 are the only hands he can really snap with here. I don't think he isolates with any hand that contains a 4.

Fold to the raise preflop.

As played, call on the turn and probably fold to a large river bet. And probably check behind if he checks the river (I don't like going for value this thin when we don't have a good read on villain yet).

Most of villain's range is 99, TT, QQ, KK, AJ, AK and AQ.

As far as villain knows, hero is a huge fish and calling station. There is a good chance he will just give up on the river if he has a weaker hand. Not that easy for villain to fire 4 barrels against a standard live 1/2 calling station with a hand worse than KJ.

Generally speaking, its not good to be flat-calling an ep raise from a seemingly tight player preflop with AJo especially when we only have 100bb and haven't really got much of a read on the table yet.

Thanks for the replies thus far. The reason I posted the hand is because (surprise!) I'm actually the villian. I wanted to get a feel for what the real villian (AJ) would be thinking concerning my image and bet sizing.

I actually had AKo here. After being card dead for quite some time, I found myself involved in this hand. I assume PF and flop bets are standard. When he called the flop, I immediately put him on some kind of J. I know that's not what his range is limited to, but that's what I thought at the time.

On the turn, I found myself thinking that this was a good opportunity to represent the overpair. My image was very tight, and, although I hadn't sat with villian for long, he should know this if he was paying any attention at all. When he called, I knew I would have to shove the river to have any kind of chance at winning, but since he was new, I wussed out and checked.

Attempting bluffs isn't something I normally do. Attempting bluffs vs unknowns is something I rarely, if ever, do. However, here I thought it might be a good time to give it a try. Thoughts?

Bluffing at 1/2 is high variance. Just be patient and value bet strong hands - they will call

If you play an extremely super tight game and your opponents are aware then double barrelling AK with these stack sizes is fine. You wont get them off a J on the turn but you will get them off a lower pair.

The problem with this hand though is that villain has only just sat down. We don't have a read on him and he doesn't know that hero's ep opening range is QQ+/AQ+.

You should read the FAQs. If you had, you would have seen that these type of posts are against the rules of the forum.

You may consider that a bit nitty, however these threads are essentially useless to you and us. Most readers of this forum don't think about a hand like the average low stakes player, so our collective opinion is of no value to you in evaluating what the average villain is thinking. As you should note, 3 of the posters said fold preflop and this guy didn't.

At the same time, you give us no virtually no reads on yourself. If I'm playing against you, I'd have a lot more information on you that you provided, even if you had only playing 1 hand out of 30.

At this level, you should be focused on fixing your own leaks, rather than worrying about about what 1 player is thinking about. Start fixing your own leaks (like trying to bluff someone off TPTK hands).

Locked.