Hero is pretty new to the table. Looks like Asian 20-something. Been quiet since sitting down, raising in LP once and folding to a donk bet on a missed flop. About $360 in stack

Villain is middle-aged man of indeterminate ethnicity (swarthy would be the term that comes to mind). Talks a lot. Has a $900+ stack.

1 limp, villain raises to $12 from mp2, BTN calls, I call in BB with Ad4d, limper calls.

Flop: 9d 3d 2s (pot $48)
I take the lead and bet $30, villain quickly calls, everyone else folds.

Turn: 5h (pot $108)
I lead again for $60. Villain tanks for a while and starts asking questions about what I have. He eventually calls.

River: Qs (pot $228)
I tank for a bit then bet $125, basically half my stack.

I feel I effed up the bet sizing on this hand, especially the river. If my goal was to get villain to hero call a big value bet, I shove. He's already exhibited that any hand he has isn't worth raising my flop and turn donks so trying to induce a raise with a $60 bet would seem pointless. But calling a shove for slightly over pot against his range seemed pretty unlikely as well. So what's the correct size? I'm thinking I needed to bet more on the turn so our river decision isn't so annoying?

Not much to say other than fold preflop, because other than that you seem to have come to the right conclusions yourself. Bet $75-80 on turn and shove river, EZ game. Flop bet is also a little on the small side but much less egregiously so.

yeah fold pre. This is why being oop with a speculative hand sucks. When we hit it's so hard to get max value.

I guess you could do like 35 otf/90 ott/shove river...

fold pre

If we're calling pre, I don't mind the donk otf, though a c/r is also an ok line as it may get a free turn if you miss as well as maximizing FE when we actually have it. Ott I like closer to 80+ if you're going for stacks. Which makes a more reasonable river shove which may come across as a bricked-FD bluff, or just a normal river bet.

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Disagree with fold pre. It's a suited ace going 4 ways to a $50 pot. Just be able to get away from top pair obv. It's marginal but it's certainly not an insta muck.

You know your mistakes, you messed up ott. Flop $30 is fine as we have A high.
Turn is definitely $75 though. River jam. If he's calling $125 otr he's calling it all. Set it up.

Still shove even without it set up, he's calling. If he's calling anything over $100 he's calling it all.

"Intermediate ethnicity" lol. What does that mean ?!?!

Fold pre, no history with V and we are oop.

I might CR flop, facilitating turn sizing. In the least, getting stack in by the river.

OP has a spectrum of ethnic backgrounds, and he ranks this fellow in the middle.

Definitely don't like CR. This is a flop that could easily get checked through + a call on a check-raise puts us in an undesirable situation if the turn bricks. Bet, bet, bet line makes my hand much harder to read, imo.

I also call preflop. It's not perfect as we don't have position plus we'd probably really rather go 5+ ways. But most likely 4ways for a decent price is good enough for me.

I like the flop donk. We should have big equity here with our flush draw + gutshot + overcard. With smaller stacks we could go for a check/raise to get stacks in with huge dead money; but being OOP, we're not going to be able to get stacks in on the flop and that leaves for some sucky turn spots OOP. So I like the donk, although I'd probably bet closer to pot simply for more immediate value. If raised, I'm shipping it.

Turn is all about setting up things so we can play for stacks by the river, imo. We've got $318 left and pot is $108. If we bet $85, that sets up a $278 pot with $233 left, so we'd be able to shove the river. So I'd bet $85 - $100 or so to set up easy river shove.

The too small turn bet really screwed things up so that now we have to overbet the river in order to get stacks in. But I shove anyways. The difference between him calling a shove and a big 1/2 PSB is practically very little, but the difference in +EV is huge.

GcluelessNLnoobG

grunch: river bet was fine

you have to go with your gut on this. but you really want to get called. if you think a shove is as likely (or even "slightly" less likely) to be called than your 125, then shove. if you think 125 will be called, then bet that. if you think 60 will get called or raise then bet that. in most cases i'm betting about half pot on river just like you did. river is where you have to hope he's not on a draw cause then he's obviously not putting more money in. before river is when we should be potting it to build the pot against gamblers and take away proper chasing odds.

i agree turn was too small. villain probably willing to call something closer to pot if he's going to call at all.

after reading responses just to chime in, i'm on board with this call pre. there are two types of hands i'm generally ok with calling out of position pre (or even limping) and that's suited Ax's and low/mid pocket pairs. basically flush mining and set mining.

Villain only has to call the $258 shove 48.4% as much as the $125 bet to be the same.

For example, if Villain calls the $125 bet 50% of the time, he'd only have to call a $258 shove 24.2% of the time. There's no way Villain has a calling discrepancy this wide between a shove vs a still very large bet.

LOL.

played right on every street. disagree with the shove OTR. you want V to pay you off. i guess either way, youre getting called just because youre Asian and V doesnt want to be bluffed lol.

The thing about pre is not only do you have the worst absolute position, you also don't enjoy the relative positional advantage that you often have when calling out of the blinds because of that limper.

This is a good point that I didn't consider. Flop bet should be much bigger because if you bet big and are raised it's an easy ship, whereas if you bet small and are raised small you have a gross decision where you must choose between overbet jamming and often playing OOP on the turn with 1 bet left.

yeah, i need to think more in terms of this. after reading some ed miller i started leveling myself into thinking i'm getting too many folds when i have a winning a hand and not enough folds when i don't.

the reality of low stakes too... that i sometimes forget (not necessarily applicable here) is that villains are more likely to call out large bets before the river when they're gambling on their draws.

anyway, ignore my grunch... shove it!

Ya, it's important not to be too results oriented here. For example, let's say that this villain is only calling a big bet+ (including a shove) 1/3rd of the time. That means he'll be folding twice outta three times. So in game time, when we see all those folds against us, we think "oh-oh, I'm betting too much" when in reality it's fine cuz it'll be made up for when he eventually calls that third time.

If that is your plan, are you B/F a blank turn?

Definitely.