Background: I am 22yr old Phd student who played 1/3,2/5 all summer as a part time job to help pay for school and finances. I would say I am a good 1/3 player and an average 2/5 depending on the amount of regs. 5/10 never runs here but for some odd reason it was the other day. Normally I would never play but strangely enough there was some regular dono boxes in the 1/3,2/5 games playing in the game. And only a couple of decent 2/5 regs.
H has been playing for roughly 3 hours with winning a couple hands without showdown mostly and playing TAG.

OTTH

V1 is 30yr old white guy who is probably the best or second best player at the table. He is the only solid reg who will take on other regs and I feel he really enjoys it when he outplays a good player. Somewhere between LAG and TAG.

Pre: HJ limps, H($1250) on BTN raises to $45 w/ AT, folds to V1($1500ish) in BB who calls, limper folds

Flop($105): T42 V1 cks, H bets $60, V calls

Turn($225): T42Q V1 cks, H cks

River($225): T42Q2 V1 now bets $300, H goes into the tank and calls, V shows KQo.

Meh. Idk felt like I really can never fold this hand from a GTO perspective but I really expected to lose here when I call. I guess my flop sizing was too small which gave him incentive to float? But if he is going to float me I do not know if $80 vs $60 is gonna matter a ton to him.

size smaller flop maybe? but as played seems fine.

also id argue calling so wide vs described player type with even worse than AT has to be good

V-bet turn, as played seems fine. Huge fish play from your opponent except the river sizing which is great given that his range is so all over the place.

AGree that we should size the flop smaller, although if he's calling as wide as KQo to 3/5 size cbets, the larger size is better, but that's only knowable in hindsight.

Gotta pay him off on the river. A number of hands he could be bluffing with.

Pretty standard. Weird call from V1 on the flop from out of position though. I've only done that when i knew my opponent was way full of it, and only in position

Yeah I felt it was a pretty trivial call the only thing that made me think about it was he knows I know how he enjoys outplaying others and felt this was a spot he would not choose to bluff but oh well.

Have you ever seen him psb or ob bluff?

Most V's will only do it for value. If he's floating like this hes going to need to bluff a decent amt. I would be very surprised if he sizes up as a bluff often. A lot of regs are very unbalanced from a sizing perspective in these types of spots so folding the top of your check back turn range may be much better than it seems. Not to mention everyones in a bigger game then normal which generally makes most get out of line less. 300 is a weird size too. I feel like if you asked v why he sized the way he did and he had to answer honestly, I would be impressed if he had a clear explanation.

So i guess it really depends if he has sized similarly before as a bluff. At what size does this not become a trivial call in your mind? You make it seem like v could go bigger and you would still call often here.

I agree with this which is why I thought about it for some time but decided I really should not fold here. Reason being my explanation that he enjoys outplaying the better players at the table, hence why he is floating I think. I know he understands that I am a solid player but he also knows I would not be sitting in the 5/10 game if it wasn't very good. Lot of leveling going on here with me and him understanding our dynamics and how we will play each other with the game being so good.

As for the sizing thats a good question. Honestly I am not sure what the cutoff would be.

It is okay to fold if you know that he has you beat. Don't use game theory to justify calls that will lose you money. If your instincts tell you you're never winning then listen to them. This is a spot where the standard line is to call, but trusting your reads will cause you to make better decisions in the long run.

Wow I never thought of it that way. I always call down when I know I’m beat. This is going to completely change the way I play.

Seriously, it is just not helpful to think of things this way. Short of having x-Ray vision we can never KNOW that we’re beat in spots like this. We can only assign a probabilistic likelihood based on player tendencies, their actions and our reads. And while I’m not going to say that you shouldn’t value and trust your live reads to a degree, more often than not human beings are overconfident in their judgment and we should lean towards the theoretically optimal play the vast majority of the time.

Bet turn check river is a way better play imo. As played, yeah prob have to call but it sucks cuz with ur flop sizing it's hard to show up with a bluff and ur hand is fairly face up as either a T or A high so he's not incentivized to turn pairs into a bluff here.

His sizing looks like he's trying to get max value from Tx so maybe based on leveling you can fold river. But second pair top kicker in a spot where you're uncapped and Qx is unlikely makes a great turn barrel, checking makes your strategy too passive imo

^^ I really don't agree with bet turn and check river. Anything that we can get value from on the turn likely gives us value on the river anyways and checking back turn lets us catch bluffs on the river, which is what we want.

If villain is solid, he will have some x/raise bluffs on the turn, and it sucks to have to fold when that happens.

Also to me, his sizing looks equally like he's trying to get max value from Tx as it looks like he's trying to get Tx to fold, which is why it's a really good sizing. If he's solid, I think he definitely has both value hands and bluffs in his range here, and we should call with the better hands in our range. We will pay off his value hands sometimes, but sometimes, that's just an unavoidable part of poker.

This is what was going through my mind a good chunk after his bet. That if he somehow has a better value hand than me like A2 or QT or whatever then sometimes we are just resigned to lose.

What leveling? What dynamic?

From the op you mentioned that he likes to outplay people and that your game is good. Outside of that, do we we have any actual hh that will give us some specific insight into this V’s approach?

Has he ever tried to get out of line or out play you specifically?
Has he been getting out of line today?

I have caught myself in a similar position before where I make poor decisions because for whatever reason I believe I am understanding a v’s game when in reality it’s me stretching limited insignificant info w/o specific hh’s.

Theoretically you believe there is an interesting dynamic going on but has it manifested itself at all in terms of actual hands played?

Turn check is really weird, I guess it's not terrible but I find it very bad. Everything just turned equity, clear bet. Your hand is strong enough to overbet as well. I wouldn't cause you block Tx but I'd rather overbet turn than check back.