2/5, 7 handed, $1.5k effective with the main villain. Villain is fairly new to the table, but seems to be loose and slightly more passive. I highly doubt villain is paying attention, but if he is hero would likely have a TAG/nitty image.

OTTH

Hero opens K J $20 from LJ, villain calls CO, loose passive calls BTN, unknown calls SB, unknown calls BB.

Flop ($100): J 4 3. X to hero who bets $35 and only villain calls. I know in theory this is almost certainly a check, but that seems to be missing out on serious value live. Also, this spot obviously doesn't exist in theory.

Turn ($170): T. Hero? Again, this is almost certainly a check in theory, and I think it's way closer than the flop, but I think we have to bet this spot live. Would you go small or big? Why?

When you say Villain is "loose and slightly more passive", does that mean calling the flop to see if he can pick up a draw on the turn? If so, I'm betting a bit over a 1/2 PSB (~$100) to deny odds. If Villain seems to call flops with one pair, looking for a showdown, probably about $40 to induce a call.

This is a spot where I combine observed behavior with what my gut tells me in the moment.

+1

You unblock all floats which is good. In theory we go big because Villain will need to defend some non Jx OTT to not get exploited. But that doesn't matter because these guys have no clue what MDF is.

In practice you could get creative here. Bet very small OTT to induce turn raises from his floated air (which you unblock so he has a higher % of floats now).

Then call his turn raise and call almost all rivers.

I don’t think we should expect v to have pure floats here, flop was 5 way and v had 3 ppl to act behind when he called. Would expect mostly Jx, 56, then <100% weights of a2-a5, sets, 2p, 4x (would give less weight to the weaker hands here). Imo inducing w small size is not gonna work too well here, I’d just go 1/2p ish and check river.

That's a good theoretical point but it's unlikely V is taking into account how his range should shrink given the 3 players to act behind him.

I assume an unknown is a fish until proven otherwise. A lot of people advocate playing GTO as a default and then deviating to exploits once we study our opponents. I think it's the opposite.

Our default is pure exploit and then if someone is really good - we play as close as we can to solver-like.

But it's 2/5 so no one is really good and we should just assume everyone is weaker.

Ya, I’m not saying we need to have a balanced strat here or anything, I just think this is a spot where most villains tend to play pretty straightforward. Not suggesting v is explicitly thinking abt what his range should look like, but I do think practically speaking stuff like AT folds here but sometimes gets peeled with 1 or 0 players left to act. I am also giving v some weak peels like A2, just not 100% weighted. I don’t think it changes the turn much tho unless you start giving v a lot of < 1 pair flop calls and having him raise turn frequently (which I think is our main disagreement).

Re gto default: yes I certainly agree that our default should incorporate population reads to the extent we have them, altho im not sure I would say that’s the opposite (seems more like a middle ground to me).