Villain is 28/11/7, 50% cbet 50% fold to cbet.

Cake - $0.20 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

BB: $19.00
UTG: $27.40
UTG+1: $11.34
MP: $25.33
MP+1: $8.79
LP: $14.42
CO: $6.85
Hero (BTN): $29.18
SB: $47.79

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.20

Pre Flop: ($0.30) Hero has J A

UTG calls $0.20, fold, MP calls $0.20, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to $1.00, fold, fold, UTG calls $0.80, fold

Standard 3bb + 1bb per limper raise.

Flop: ($2.50, 2 players) 3 8 8
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.25, UTG calls $1.25

I bet there because I truly believed I had the best hand - I strongly doubted villain had a pair. I bet half the pot because a) I kind of wanted him to call and b) Though I believed I had him beat, my hand is ace-high - small hand, small pot.

Turn: ($5.00, 2 players) 6
UTG checks, Hero bets $2.50, UTG calls $2.50

I bet because I still didn't think he had a pair and just floated the flop, and would fold to $2.50. Again, small hand, small pot.

River: ($10.00, 2 players) Q
UTG checks, Hero checks

Checking back here was a no-brainer IMHO.

My only questions are: 1) My betsizing on the flop and turn - were they ok? and 2) Double-barreling air is usually considered "a bad idea" in the micros - was it okay in THIS situation?

the flop betsize is fine. I might have made it slightly bigger because of the FD but betting half-pot here is good. had he board been rainbow it would be perfect.

Your reasoning is a little off however. The thing is that on a 883 board neither of you will have hit anything and there is very few draws there. Also, you are IP. This means that villain can't float (it is way harder to float OOP vs IP). And since he hasn't hit very often he will need to fold very often. By the same logic you aren't value betting here very often either. This means that you are bluffing way more often than v-betting on this board. So you want to make your bluffs cheaper even if it means that your valuebets gets smaller on this type of flop. So you would also bet half-pot with a hand such as 78s.

And the reverse is then true for wet boards which is why you should c-bet bigger on very wet boards as you want to charge villain for his draws.

The turn bet isn't that good. The 6 really isn't a good card to barrel here. Try to assign a range for villain at this point and see if you can work out why. Hint: A K would have been a much better barrel card.

And depending on villain I would actually be tempted to fire a third barrel on river. This ties in with his turn range so I can get back to that later. Again I would have been much more likely to fire a third barrel on a K or A here.

Since he limped pre, according to his stats his range is the top 28% of hands, a small percentage of which has kings to begin with, and most likely, if he HAD a king he'd have raised pre instead of limping pre. So, he's more likely to have a 6 than a K.

Right?

I don't mind the turn bet tbh. The 6s doesn't really change much in terms of the flop action but it can lend credence to hero having Axs and has now turned the NFD so a 2nd barrel is believable and consistent with NFD + 2 overs.

The check behind on the river is standard but if a 3rd spade hit instead and villain doesn't lead into us it's a perfect spot for a 3rd barrel as we'd have expected them to raise an 8x hand on the turn (except 83 and 86) and likely expect them to lead any flush into us.

not quite, but the point you are making is true.

What is your range vs what is his range.

So you raised and 2 limpers. I don't know your exact stats but I think it is fair to assume that your raising range has a lot of aces, kings and queens in it. Basically you will have a lot of those high cards.

His range when he calls flop is going to be random floats (but as you said he most likely raises a bunch of his good kings and aces preflop) like KT or whatever but they are a minority. He will have some 8x hands as well but 87s and 98s are 4 combos combined on that flop. He might have some more 8x hands depending on how bad he is but they really aren't that big a part of his range either. What is a huge part of his range is smaller pocket pairs. So when the turn is a 6 he will have boated up some times, but more importantly, it's not a scare card as you have so few sixes in your range so he will call again with his pocket pairs. Had the turn been a high-card he would have had a much tougher time calling with 77.

So by the river I think we can assume that he has given up on his floats, a small part of his range is 8x and boats and a very large part is pocket pars. Say river is a K. How comfortable would you be calling a third barrel here with a hand like 77? Even if you were bluffing you would just have gotten there a reasonable amount of time and there is the possibility that you were the one with 8x valuebetting the entire time.

I wouldn't do this without knowing villain was capable of folding a hand like 99 so this isn't strictly for the micros but I'm just trying to show the thought process in a hand like this.

I don't know. your thinking on all streets is kinda whacked

Flop: you probably have the best hand but you don't want a call. how many worse hands are calling you? I don't know how you get your reads but to me, when someone limp calls pre from UTG and c/c flop they have a pocket pair far more often than anything else.

turn: again, even if you do have the best hand (which I doubt) how do you keep thinking they're gonna call you with worse? or are you betting as a bluff, in which case you're only getting worse hands to fold, which has its merits but surely not worth the risk?

river: of all streets this is by far the least "no brainer" spot and deserves more thought than you evidently gave it. think about it now (clue: you fold out far more hands with a river bet here than your turn bet)

That's not a good reason to bet. You bet because by doing so you encourage villain to make a mistake (ie, do something different to what they would do if they could see your cards) - either by calling when they shouldn't, or by folding when they shouldn't. When villain makes a mistake, you gain.

If he floated the flop, he did so with the intention to take it away on the turn or river. If so, then he's just as likely to raise your turn bet. Then what would you do?

If you are certain you have the best hand, and aren't scared of draws, and that your opponent is floating with nothing, then you don't want to bet him off the hand. Rather, you want him to try to bluff at you or you want to get to showdown as cheaply as possible. If your read is that strong, then checking behind is a better strategy - then villain might be encouraged to bluff at a later street, and you get a free card to hit one of your overs.

In any case, I think your read is a little strong here. You cannot be so certain that you are way ahead with ace-high on that board. And you cannot be certain that villain has something he can lay down. I'd play far more cautiously.

You say "small hand, small pot" a lot, but all I see is you creating a bigger pot.

At these stakes, when a villain limp calls in early position, he nearly always has a small pocket pair. It's especially true if his stats are 28/11, as it means he has a hand he wants to play, but it's not strong enough to raise with when there's so many players yet to act. (He doesn't want to raise and then have to fold to a 3-bet. He wants to see a cheap flop). So he's set-mining, and then sees a dry flop that you almost certainly didn't hit. He's calling half pot with hands like 55 and 77. The 6 on the turn doesn't scare him, as that's not part of your range, and if he has sevens, he's still good anyway. You should check behind and hope you make a pair on the river, or there is a scare card you can bet.
If you'd checked the turn, and then bet the queen on the river you may have won this hand, as that queen is the only scare card on the board.
Personally, I'd have checked it down after the flop bet was called. Betting 2 streets with ace high on a board like this is rarely profitable at these stakes. It's absolutely fine to play weak tight and just give up if your c-bet gets called. Guys like this villain aren't gonna fold to half pot bets when they have 2nd or 3rd pair and your hand looks just like AK that whiffed.

P.S. Why are you playing 20NL? I thought you were only breaking even at 10NL and lower.

i think giving up is fine. But as you said its almost always a PP or some SC's and I would almost alawys triple barrel no matter how the board runs out vs these guys.
They call 1 or 2 streets with their PP but usually dont have the balls to call off a third barrel even on total low blank. they are just like meeh he haz overpair probably i fold. Their range is so faceup its easy to play

agree with Diehard. Once you have decided to bluff two streets, you should see it through on this board and make a big pot bet, maybe even shove all in. You would be surprised how many folds you get and the pot is worth winning.

I wouldn't have bet the river.

On the other hand, if the villain had A K, he would've missed the nut flush draw; and would've folded the better hand.

Just saying...

Some great advice on this thread as always.

I think the #1 thing to get out of all of it: "When villain limps UTG and then c/c the flop he almost always has a PP or SC." Well, DUH - I should have known that. And combine that with a 28/11 and a 50% fold to c-bet, I should have known that there was a very low probability he was going to fold, so why barrel half-pot? He's not going to fold to it.

I'm also thinking of some advice that ArtySmokes gave in another hand "You've read the COTW on crushing the micros so why do you keep breaking the rules?" combined with an observation in this thread by gothninja "you keep saying small hand small pot but you keep making the pot bigger".

After all is said and done, 2 things:

1. I'm wondering if I should just leave bluffing out of my arsenal for awhile, or at the very very least do it sparingly and when I do "pick a spot", only do it when there are legitimate scare cards on the board and I have legitimate reads/stats that the villain is likely to fold, i.e. a fold to cbet of 90%+ or a VPIP of 12?

2. Would it have been a mistake to check back the flop and the turn, and even the river?

Checking back flop is a pretty big mistake. You would c-bet 100% of your range on boards like this simply because it is very profitable.

Checking back turn and re-evaluating on river is fine.

If you do bet this turn card you pretty much have to bet river as well.

Basically you can't fire twice on this board. Either fire once or follow through on all streets. This turn card on this board is not a good spot for a double barrel.

Generally speaking, people call to much at the lower levels and the way to exploit that is to not bluff and simply valuebet. So not bluffing is a very small mistake compared to bluffing too much.

This absolutely makes sense as a general rule, but if you were confident that the villain was a station would you still c-bet with air, especially if the flop hit his range (PP, SC) better than yours? Seems like throwing away money especially if the turn bricks.

I could see c-betting 100% if the villain was a nit and/or had a high fold to c-bet.

Villains range is much more than just PPs and SCs. Those are a decent part of his range especially of his calling range but he will have a lot of other random crap in there.