3/5 spread. Max bet $500. Effective stacks of $1600. I will recap the pre and flop action but I think it's relatively standard (happy to reconsider if I'm missing something glaring).

Hero is a regular with what I think is a tagish image on the nuttier size. Tonight I have shown down a couple of turn suck outs where my flopped top pair turns two pair.

V is very solid and a good player. Typically pretty tight but is fully capable of making large bluffs where he thinks it makes sense. His opening range for a raise is pretty narrow. I can't remember him ever showing down a hand that he raised pre that wasn't a premium hand.

1 limp and and V opens from MP for $25. Folded to me in the SB and I make it $80 with A A V calls

Flop ($160) is 3 6 Q

I lead for $105 V flats.

Turn ($370): 8
Hero?

I'd check call. Trying to get three streets against this guy is overplaying it. Not sure what I'm doing if he bets a random river.

We have the Ah which reduces his flush draw combos, I like either leading small ish for like 175 on the turn, or bet/calling. I'm gonna' go with the small bet because it's very unlikely he's folding a hand like KQ at this point, and we can also c/c river if wer decide not to bet ourselves

Problem with betting is this:

Facing a raise is gross because he has the goods enough that I don't want to play on, but at the same time it's really hard for us to have more than one pair here and he knows it. I also don't see a lot of upside to betting because we're not getting three streets.

Given your smallish preflop raise size OOP, my feeling is that his range is still pretty wide, but includes a lot of one pair hands and not many flush draws with your ace blocker. Checking to pot control is ok if you're worried about variance, but it's probably higher EV to make it like $265, check/call scary looking rivers and bet like $515 on river bricks (and make a good decision if he raises you on the turn; probably folding a river raise).

Also, it's illogical to simultaneously believe, "I'm not getting three streets" and "I don't want to bet because he can make large bluffs." If he's bluffing too much, then bet/call, and you get more than three streets. If he doesn't bluff raise a lot then just bet/fold.

Also, ask yourself, would it be profitable to 3bet 78 OOP and bet/bet/bet most board runouts as a bluff? If not, (and it shouldn't be if he's a "good" player), then it should be profitable to bet/bet/bet aces for value.

What range of hands is V opening that is better than us right now? It's sounds like, from OP, that V shouldn't have a set here except for exactly QQ. 2P combos are non-existent on this board for a nit. If he's tighter, he's probably not 4! AQ, doubtful many 4! KQ in general. He might only 4! KK some small % of the time while IP. Plus if he has a hand like KJhh, he's blocking a good portion of our hearts 3! Range so he'll call with hearts a lot because he'll be good a lot of they come

I'm betting turn 175-225

I like a check/call here. The board is not particularly connected, so you're not worried about giving a free card. When he calls your flop bet, a lot of his range is 99-JJ, KQ, AQ, and maybe some QJs and some floats with AK. With that range, I agree with the other posters that it's going to be hard to get three streets of value. This means you're not losing much value by checking.

300bb deep in a spread limit game, not sure I 3b pre here unless my 3b range is much wider then AA. With a TAG image, I'm probably going to just call here and keep the SPR high and try not to get up against the $500 bet size limit.

1 limp and and V opens from MP for $25. Folded to me in the SB and I make it $80 with A A V calls

Flop ($160) is 3 6 Q

I lead for $105 V flats.

Turn ($370): 8
Hero: checks. For many of the reasons noted above. Didn't think there was much worse that would call except for exactly KK and obviously no chance he would fold a hand I beat. With me holding the A the possible flush combinations are also greatly reduced.

V: bets $250. Hero?

This is why I really didn't want to check the turn. We call here and our hand is mostly face up, while V's range remains wide (so we're definitely not folding). Does V think we're 3betting AQ pre? I think our call here from villain's perspective is pretty much always going to be AA or exactly AhKh, maybe a stubborn JJ, but rarely QQ or KK.

At this point, I almost want to do something spastic and x/r smallish just to see how villain reacts (and make him pay a bit more for his semibluff attempt if that's what his bet is). But I get that we're trying not to get felted with one pair, so i guess call.

You definitely can't fold here - if you fold aces in this spot you're folding everything but the nuts. By checking the turn, you're also underrepping your hand. His large sizing looks like a set or a semi-bluff - I'd range him on KJ, K10, J10, J9, 98, 87, random floats that he calls that has to bluff, 3 combos of QQ, and 3 combos of 88. AQ also makes sense, but I discount that hand because of the large turn sizing (if he wanted to get value from JJ, he'd use a smaller sizing). I would check call turn and then evaluate river, likely check calling any non-heart river.

Why discount AQ? His sizing isn't tremendously huge for a good player that often puts people to the test. I think V can have KK too, in case he didn't want to have to deal with possibly getting 5bet pre. Really any pocket pair might not give up to a single flop bet - maybe he's trying to fold out TT-JJ and doesn't want AK to catch up? I think there's a lot more in his range than flush draws and sets...

Edit: I just noticed the part where op says V only opens premium hands. I consider that a nit more than a "good player." If op seems on the tight side too, then V is likely to just fold AQ/KQ pre to op's 3bet except maybe suited combos. Other than that, I think his range might only be like TJs (discounting this with MP open plus 3bet call), and 99-KK (does a guy like this even open 66-88?). I'm still not expecting him to always fold his pocket pairs that didn't flop a set on a Q high board.

"Nit" wasn't my read from the description. Depends how you interpret "pretty narrow" and "premium hand" I guess. If the idea is supposed to be that v only has big pairs and AK when he raises, then bet/bet/bet is more reasonable because KK is a big chunk of his range. But that type of v would be incompatible with "good player". Maybe OP can clarify.

It's not illogical at all. Suppose for the sake of argument the only hands he ever has are JThh or QQ. It's easy to construct percentages for him where the fact that we're having to put extra money in is bad for us (because the majority of the time he has QQ) but we cannot fold (because our odds are too good).

Also your argument in the last sentence appears to be a blend of "bet because then you get more money when he bluffs", which makes no sense (to get bluff money out of the opponent, checking is obviously better than betting) and "bet to see where you're at", which is rarely a good idea.

I'm not sure what any of the above has to do with not getting three streets, which is more about what happens when he calls, rather than raises.

There are important differences. Even if it's possible to bet/bet air here profitably, that doesn't mean threebetting and bet/bet/bet is profitable because we had to dodge stuff like 4bets and scarier boards to get here. Also, having AA is this spot is an important difference because it's huge blockers against him having AQ, which would be one of his major calldown hands.

This makes no sense to me. If you think AA is good here a lot - which you should, if you're betting - then you should be ecstatic at this turn of events. Not only have you got villain to put a bet in anyway, but his range is even wider than it would have been calling a bet, and you have the option to raise if you want to. It seems like you're just uncomfortable with not knowing what villain has, but the object of poker is not to narrow villain's range to the point where you're sure you know if you're winning or not.

V's preflop range matters a lot here, OP should clarify. If "premium hands" really means like TT+, AK, maybe AQ, then you probably want to bet/bet/bet to extract the manies from KK and AQ. If villain's range includes stuff like 66, 88, JTs and KQs, then things are different.

Check and then I think you should call a bet on the turn. Line may change after river. It's worth that street, just my opinion

wtf, we have aces. bet bet bet for value. most likely outcome: v: aw you had it this time. those other times we go bet bet bet and lose, h: lol how come i never have aces in these spots? fml.

Exactly!
I once called down a nitty guy who 3bet OOP then bet/bet/shoved for like 230BBs total. He had AK on a Q high board. I had QT, and called down with top pair no kicker. However, the turn brought in the flush and the river paired the board and I knew he would never bet/bet/shove any value hand but QQ (which I blocked). He claimed he would have played aces the same, but I knew he's the type to get scared to bet a value hand when scary cards come and won't ship without the nuts. But paradoxically people like this will sometimes do crazy bluffs and bet a ton when scary cards come when they only have air (and yes they do occasionally get called). He was the type who would have check/called aces on the turn, or perhaps even check/folded to me because I must have the flush (because why would I bet with just a queen?).

Just don't be the guy who bet/bet/bets AK on a Q high board (repping only a single combo of QQ against villain with Qx), but check/calls AA.

My read of V's range opening and then flatting is 1010+ and AK maybe AQ suited. I checked because I didn't think I would get called by worse or fold better from specifically this player. Against others I do think a bet/bet/bet line is better. My read at the time on the turn was that I was ahead and that I stood a better chance of making money by checking and letting him stab at it (which I thought there was a good chance he would do) rather than letting him correctly fold.

Yeah, if he's that tight then you should be bet/bet/bet simply because it's so unlikely you are beaten. KK/AQs is straight up more likely than QQ. It seems unlikely you can get more money out of JJ when he's this tight. If you feel like he's so tight that he can get away from KK here, put some more AK in your bet/bet/bet range.

I feel like I know where this is going, which is that he had QQ. If he's completely predictable and tight then maybe you can c/f river. You're leading us astray a bit with the description of him as a good player if that is the case though.

Umm, AQ??? Maybe some combos of KQ

Also, that's why I size smaller OTT. This allows V to level himself into thinking maybe we have AK and he can call with JJ/TT

I would just keep betting the turn personally. $200 looks like good sizing to me to get calls from AQ, KQ, JJ-88. He has been 3! more frequently than most so his range should be inherently weaker.

His calling range is fairly binary: either he puts us on AK and continues to call with his numerous one pair holdings or he believes we have AA/KK and folds. By sizing our bet down we should be able to manipulate the elasticity of his calling range in our favor however.

1 limp and and V opens from MP for $25. Folded to me in the SB and I make it $80 with A A V calls

Flop ($160) is 3 6 Q

I lead for $105 V flats.

Turn ($370): 8
Hero: checks. For many of the reasons noted above. Didn't think there was much worse that would call except for exactly KK and obviously no chance he would fold a hand I beat. With me holding the A the possible flush combinations are also greatly reduced.

V: bets $250. Hero: calls believing I'm still ahead. That's being said, if I was bluffing I might be more inclined to bet here and so I appreciate what you all are saying about just betting here. And not be too results oriented but that is especially true because of the river. Probably would have been better to define my hand before the "brick" on the river.

River is a complete brick J hero?

It would be really weird to start betting again now that the flush came... Who knows though, maybe he'll think you're taking a stab at it with AK. I could see myself betting like $400 here. And I'm probably calling it off if he ships (he can't really have any flushes, right?). You could be a sicko and crai. You can do something weird and bet like $100 as a blocker bet, and call a raise (does he raise sets to that bet?). Or you can check/call... At the table, given action so far, i think I'm check/calling most bets, but thinking about it more I think that's my least favorite option.