Table is really, realllllllyyyyy good, lots of straddles, like 4-5 way pots to every raise (e.g. straddle, limp, limp, open to $60, and it's 4-5 way to the flop, with people calling along with hands like 97o...). I'm a little frustrated cuz I can't hit any flops (and it's hard to win 5-way pots without hitting), but overall nbd.

Hero, $600, UTG: Not sure what my image is, or if I even have one. People's main impression of me is that I'm that "annoying" guy who raises their limps, but then I check/fold a lot of flops. Have won like maybe 2-3 pots with cbets in the last couple of hours, out of like maybe 10 pots that I entered.

Villain, $1500, CO: Competent TAG, 60s-ish white male, somewhat on the nitty side. Have played with him before, and never ever seen him get remotely out of line with his bets/raises. Capable of bluff-catching, but overall not very imaginative. This session he's just been a card-rack and smashing people.

BTN straddles like usual for this session, action starts in SB, SB calls, BB calls.

Hero with AK, opens to $55. Standard so far, right? Any opinions on sizing?

Somewhat surprisingly, it folds all the way around to CO Villain who flats without much thought (would 3bet KK+ 100%, not sure about JJ/QQ/AK but probably flats it most of the time), and SB flats while BB folds. 3 way to flop.

Flop: K K 9, pot: $170.

SB checks, Hero cbets $75, Villain flats without much thought (~2-3 seconds), and SB folds. Again, standard so far?

My thoughts here are that Villain is never ever floating me, and probably has a range like... 99-QQ/KJs/KQ+? Not a whole lot going on with this flop, and because he's an unimaginative TAG, so I think his range for continuing on this flop is pretty frigging narrow. In my mind, if I had whiffed this board, I'd have cbet a little bigger and just taken it down on the flop most of the time. As it is, I still want him to think I'm just cbetting, but I'm sizing smaller to entice a flop call and hopefully a turn call as well; I'm only getting 3 streets if he has exactly KJ/KQ.

Turn: K K 9 7, pot: $320.

Hero fake tanks for about 10 seconds, then leads again for $135 (has ~$350 behind). Villain asks how much my bet is (he's got pretty bad eyesight and has asked for help reading the board and bet sizes often), is told it's $135, and then immediately jams.

I'm freaking lost, only because I have not played any pots to the turn yet in this session. I think Villain knows that I'm capable of double-barreling, but I'm not sure if he thinks I'd do it here, on this dry-ass board. There's no dynamic and no history here between us, so I really don't see him raising with KQ. He knows AK/99 is solidly in my range, and he probably wouldn't expect AA/QQ to double-barrel AND call it off to a turn raise.

Then again, I have the 3rd nuts? The flop SPR was like 2.8:1? Is the difference between AK and 99 here really that big? Personally, I'm just kinda crying/chuckling inside, because this is the one person on this table that I'm not snap-fistpump-taking-off-my-clothes-and-dancing-on-the-table-calling/jamming with AK on KK9x...

Can't fold after putting in such small flop/turn bets.

Like never folding here for 100bbs with the straddle on

I like a bigger raise preflop. You are offering pretty good calling odds for someone to call with position. BB completes and folds getting 175:45? Almost 4:1. Ha.

OTT: villain's range sounds like AK(3), KQ(4), 99(3), 77(3), AA(3), some air?

Likely the KQ,99,77 can be discounted.

Given that range how can you consider folding?

zzzzz, yes go broke with this hand. sorry you got coolered.

you have 60bb and you have trip kings with ace kicker. not folding.

Thanks for a real response. I hadn't stoved anything when I posted, so I just ran the numbers against a worst-case range (AK/99/77 only):

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

396 games 0.000 secs 79,200 games/sec

Board: Kd 9h 7d Ks
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 27.273% 10.61% 16.67% 42 66.00 { AcKc }
Hand 1: 72.727% 56.06% 16.67% 222 66.00 { 99, 77, AKs, AKo }

Pot is $940 after his jam, and we're calling $350 more, so at ~27.1% it's pretty much exactly breakeven in the worst case.

Sigh... I guess I wasted everyone's time with this. I thought it would have been much worse vs. the worst-case range, which is what I really expected to see.

As a larger point, I do think the responses here are a good sign that people really do not pay attention to reads enough, when they're given and fairly reliable (or even in their own games). Like I said, in a vacuum against a random villain, this is such an obv super snap. But like, it's insane to think a nitty McNitterson TAG would raise this turn with KQ or AA (and it's simply not possible for him to flat AA preflop). He knows enough to know that he won't ever be called by worse, and he's not crazy enough to think of turning those hands into bluffs. There's also no real draws here to worry about (I guess I could have turned the flush draw?).

A lot of my style of play evolved over time from playing against more aggressive/creative opponents, but lately I'm playing in slightly different games with more weak-tight or nitty regs, and I just seem to be hitting a brick wall postflop. It's not like I'm trying to barrel them off every single hand, but usually what I consider to be good runouts for me to bluff/semi-bluff at actually turn out to just be them trapping or turning nutty themselves.

I'm talking about hands like me opening KQhh, flop JJ7 one heart, weak-tight reg check/calls my cbet, turn Ah, he check/calls my turn barrel again, river blank, he insta-jams, I lol and fold, and he shows AA... sigh and wtf when his flop range has so many hands like 88-QQ/7x/etc. And I wouldn't care if it was just 1 or 2 random hands, but it's seems like it's happening enough to the point where I'm worried whether there's some kind of leak I'm not aware of in my game... like maybe what I consider good boards to double-barrel at is wrong, or maybe my preflop opens are badly sized and getting my opponents involved with too wide or too narrow of preflop ranges (it could really go both ways sometimes, so I'm not sure), or maybe I'm simply playing too many pots OOP (I'm generally hyper-aware of this), or god knows what.