1-3 NL.

Villain in this hand is a real whale, the money means nothing to him, he could play 10x the stakes comfortably but doesn't because he knows he sucks. UTG he raises about 40% and limps the rest. He'll call a raise of 25 with pretty much any two.

He also finds it extremely hard to resist gambling in big pots - he once tanked for 5 mins facing a 200bb check-shove on the river with J-T on a 5-5-7-7-T board. Though he did manage to fold that one.

Hero's image is TAG.

With that in mind, here's the hand:

Pre-flop: Whale limps (UTG). Hero Raises to 25 (UTG+1) w/AsAx. TAG live-pro calls (BTN). Whale calls.

Flop: Ts-4s-4x. Whale checks, Hero bets 50, BTN folds. Whale looks very weak, like he's gonna muck, but then says 'here's a donation' (or something similar), and calls. I've seen the Whale do a similar routine with nutty hands, but it usually precedes a raise, not a call. I think he genuinely thinks he's behind here.

Turn: Tx. Whale quickly checks, Hero checks.

River: T. Whale quickly checks, Hero bets 75, Whale insta-shoves. Hero has 150 behind.

Comments on all streets are welcome.

Looks WP to me until the river which is obviously the most problematic part of the hand. Hard to say, but I might have checked behind. Seems like his hand is pretty polarized: he's playing the board or hit the magical quads. Looks more like a bluff to me.

It's a four. Snap and hope it's any 4 other than T4.

If he sucks like you say, I wouldn't be shocked if he thought 4x > AA here.

I don't think most $1-$3 players check quads OTR. Looks like the pot is ~$400, so call $150 with only Tx and 44 ahead.

I disagree with this. I think spazzy whales in general will try and get it in on the flop with any 4 (either by donking or with a c/r)

This is still true though, lol

Insta-call. If he has quads, I gladly pay them off in this spot.

snap, if he has quads congrats.

well, I'm glad that no one went for the lol-live-poker-soul-read-fold, because I snapped him off.

I was more looking for input on the hand in general... for example, does anyone advocate betting the turn? My check was a) for pot control and b) because it's a horrible spot to be check raised imo. But, is pot controlling w/AA vs the spot in the game what we want to be doing? Is there an argument for bet folding the turn?

I like the check behind on turn. I thought you played that street perfectly.

I don't think betting is really an option.

Essentially, 99% of his range for calling falls into 3 types of hands...

Tx - Is now beating us
4s - Is now beating us
FDs - Sure, there is merit in charging the FD. But I don't think villain gives his speech/near fold with a FD

Small and medium pocket pairs should also be in his range. Calling the river is a must given pot odds.

and the fact we have the third nuts