Hero ($500). Recently tabled changed to play with a donating lag. Raised twice from the blinds and took it down pre. Haven't played a pot past the flop.
Villain ($1400). 65-70 year old white guy drinking water. He straddled two buttons and won a nice pot with 93o on a flopped two pair. He folded the other straddle to a pfr. No other pots played.

The hand.

Pre-flop
5 limps to hero in the small blind with KK (suits irrelevant). Raise to $25.
Everyone folds except villain in the CO who calls

Flop ($44)
992r
Hero leads for $25
Villain calls.

Turn ($95)
4r
Hero leads for $50
Villain raises to $170.
Hero?

What range do you think he has after calling the flop? I tend to play it cautious from that point.

As played...that's a nightmare. Do you have any evidence of villain bluffing or overplaying a middling hand? May be confused, but this isn't the donating lag, right?

I know Doug Polk likes to say “all three options are good here,” but this is a spot where there’s literally only one thing you can do, which is call.

Going back in the hand: your bets on the flop and the turn are both too big. You want to make small bets on this board. (I am also checking the Turn with a pretty high frequency.)

Correct. This is not the donating lag. All I know about villain is what I posted. Really not much info to go on.

What's the plan for the rest of the hand? I thought a bigger sizing on the flop would define villains range since I'm playing oop.

I was thinking he could have a 9 (A9s, 89, T9, J9) plus just about any PP (lower than a 9 or higher) after the flop call.

Check-decide on the River, mostly calling his small bets and mostly folding his shoves.

If I bet this Turn I'd mostly do it vs passive opponents. After the Turn raise on this bone dry board I'm fine with a fold. Dont wanna Play for stacks, but CO apparently does. No Draws, just 9x or a brain fart.

Turn is probably a check at a decent frequency, WA/WB spot

Just in terms of preflop action, PPs seem more likely than any of the 9x hands but of course, being in position against a likely big pair, he may have justified a speculative call with 9x.
Against almost anything in this range, and against some floats, we do better by check calling the turn. Some other posters mentioned betting small. $25 again?

I'm sorry if it was said itt but what is the max buy in? He's either running over people or on a heater. If we call we need to commit the rest of our stack, so no shame in folding since most players don't try to bluff players who raised out of the blinds in 1/2 and are bet/betting.

Too bad the board wasn't paired since it would be easier to fold, this guy could be trying to bluff a 9 (hero bet every street so far and he has position on hero to raise the river instead of folding hero out if he really does have nine, and there's the small amount of people that would want to build a pot with a big hand even if it risks folding out weaker hands) The raise size is kinda a fold-someone-out size not really a call-me size.

We really need some sort of read on villain, but to stereotype going up against a 70 year old white guy drinking water is generally a fold here.

This deep on a paired board I like a turn check and possibly large river bet if turn is check check, especially if you think he’s gonna call with a smaller pair. Tough to get 3 streets of value on this board unless villain thinks you’re super aggro/bluffy.

It's a $300 buy-in. I later found out that he was on a heater and won a $900 pot when someone ran top full house into his quads.

Results of the hand:

Hero folded. Someone talked him into showing his hand. He had A3o. He floated the flop and turned a gutshot. Oh, well.....Checking the turn would have controlled the pot and allowed me to get to showdown.

Even ignoring silly things like our range.

You don't want to define villains range. Like if you just shove 475 in on the flop, that'll often perfectly define villains range to a 9 or 22 ... or a fold. If you bet 375, likely the same happens etc. ... I'm not even sure $25 defines his range that much when you are this deep (and lol at his actual calls), but I'd still bet less.
And I guess you decided it didn't "define" it that well either, because then you bet the turn on a nothing card.

If you play live poker enough a Cbet on this board normally defines a 65-70 yr old villains hand pretty well. Floating with A3o here is super non standard.

I'm almost always finding a check on either the turn or flop here. You aren't going to get 3 streets from a guy who limp called on this flop.

When I sat down, a younger player made kind of a rude comment that I was joining the "social security table" because there was several older players. I wonder if that comment got this guy's blood boiling and inspired him to make this play.

Yep. OP, ask yourself “how can KK win a huge pot on a 9924r board against a bunch of limp-callers?” If you can’t come up with a good answer—and you can’t, because there isn’t—that’s your tip-off that this is a hand that can only get two streets of value, and that you should be checking at least one street most of the time.

I hate to be the preflop sizing police but we gotta pound them cheeks when we wake up with KK in the SB facing 5 limps... I would feel it out a little bit but consider going somewhere around 40-50 depending on how loose the table is playing. I'm not going to let the limpers set mine against me for that cheap because I know they aren't folding their pairs vs this size. I'm honestly shocked you only got one caller. As for the hand postflop I think it's extremely player dependent to the point where you can base your decision entirely on what type of player they appear to be. I think it's basically impossible for majority of the pool to be bluffing here so it's just a matter of whether they could overvalue a hand like TT or 77/88 and be raising for protection. I would base my decision on that entirely and be prepared to fold often in these spots when you're up against omc nits that are wasting away at these 1/2 tables. You might even run into AA here knowing how some of these guys play. If you think your opponent is very capable of a random spew then you just call and see what happens on the river.

It's really not a bad play on his behalf, not counting that he played post flop like a donkey, but he probably called the flop hoping to either bet if checked to or bluff when he turns a good draw (OESD). Like I said earlier I can't really fathom a fold vs a guy of that description.

I doubt it very highly, these things go on every day I doubt this caused him to tilt away money I can assure you

It was a gutshot draw, not open-ended. That's another reason I should have checked the turn - to induce bluffs. I likely wasn't going to get much value from PPs (unless over the board). I should have pot controlled for a 9 and let him bluff away. Checking the turn with big PPs has been printing money for me lately. Definitely should have done it here.

You might be giving him too much credit. He probably was calling to spike an ace and then got excited when the gutshot came.

This is a $1/2 game. The pre-flop raise size is good. You want to get it heads up against 1 caller. This is exactly what happened. $40-50 is never, ever ever getting called in the games I play. That's a 25x BB raise! LOL. This is the initial pre-flop raise, not a 3-bet. 3-bet sizing usually winds up being in the $40-60 range.

I've heard that you need anywhere from 15-1 to 20-1 odds to set mine. That means someone would have to plan to win a $400+ pot in order to have odds to set mine.

$25 is already on the larger size. $10 + $2 for each limper is pretty standard. I would have made it $20 on the button. I made it an extra $5 because I was in the blinds.

I thought your sizing was roughly fine, assuming you are raising much wider than KK. Going $50 just screams I've got QQ+, although that doesn't mean you have to have QQ+.

To be a little nitpicky, I think your sizings should be more different between BTN and SB/BB. Like if you said you'd raise to $15 on BTN, I think that's fine. If you prefer $20 on the BTN then I'd do $30 from the blinds.

I tend to think of it based on pot size, because I find that easier. So like roughly 2x pot in position and ~3x OOP.

Correct it was a gutter A234 it didn't register that there's no cards under an ace, and I meant to say he played pre bad, he shouldn't be in there with A3o and since he raised with a gutter I would want at last an open OESD/NFD to make that play so yeah he's just a fishreg.