There's so many things in this hand I don't know what exactly to ask. I think I want feedback of all my actions after flop. (I'm quite sure that the preflop check was correct!) No stats about opponents, and this is a Zoom game, so there are decent players among the fish.

Flop: Well, I likely have the best hand here. AA, QQ, AQ wouldn't limp and 33 is unlikely with only two 3s left. A3 has me beaten though, but there are many pairs that might call me here. And any card at turn is more likely to improve opponents' hands than mine, so I don't want to give free cards.

Turn: Oh, everyone called? What is happening here? The turn is a blank, which is nice. I don't really know about betting here. Should I protect my hand? Will any worse hand call 2nd street? Or should I just start pot controlling against possible better hands and check-call? I decided to bet for the same reasons as on the flop.

River: ****, it's a club. This seems like a good spot for blocker-bet. If I get raised after betting every street, I know I'm beaten, but still a fish with Ax might call a small bet. And I don't really want to face a bet after a check. I'd also make a similar sized bet with a flush, if balancing really matters in NL5.

River continued: A 1/4 pot raise. This gives me 19.2 % pot odds. I said it's an easy fold against a raise, but such a small raise makes things more difficult. Villain's play does smell like a flush, maybe with Ac or Qc; he has been calling all the way and suddenly wants more money in the pot. I guess he has me beaten more than 80 % of times here, so this is a fold, right?

It is remotely possible that he plays a top pair like this, but I don't think that's a lot. There aren't many missed draws here so I don't think he's playing with nothing (except a gutshot with KT, KJ, TJ, but calling two streets would just be bad). For what it's worth, I think I might play an AcXc (although also 33) the same way in this hand, so there wouldn't be any auto-profit for an opponent who bluffs or raises an Ax in this situation. (I'm not saying someone would exploit me personally in NL5 zoom, but there might be opponents who do bluff or raise an Ax like this on the river, and I don't want to give them huge auto-profit by folding too much.)

Snap fold

River is a check call, not a bet/???. You shouldn't be in this spot and you shouldn't be analyzing this decision tree because it will never exist once you improve your game.

Do you think it helps someone to be told to make actions without thinking, especially when you don't provide any reasoning?

Why would I call on the river? Which hands would Villain bet with that I can beat? Why would check/call be better than bet/fold? You're not really saying anything that could help me or anyone else improve.

I like the bet/fold thing. He could call you with worst hands like A2, A5, A6, A8, and A9, or Q2, Q5, Q6, Q8, Q9. When you got raised....you know you are behind so its an easy fold. What if you check and he decides to bet more than you did?...it's cheaper to bet/fold.

Just my thinking!!!

The reason we check is because we are not going to get worse hands to call us on the river, at least we are not supposed to if villain understands relative hand value.

We also check to allow all bluff hands to bluff the river. So let's say villain had a hand like 45 and he got odds to call a gutshot after UTG called your flop bet. Then he turned a double gutshot and called a turn bet. Well he can very easily rep a flush on the river and should be firing a bluff to balance his value hands.

After reviewing the hand again, you're right, we can probably check fold the river because villain really doesn't have too many bluffs. Villain doesn't have any sets or two pairs here, he pretty much only has naked aces, flushes, and a few missed straights. So we can check call river with our 33's and some A3's, and fold all our Q3 without being exploitable.

What! We obviously bet w 33 in this spot..

And get called by what hands?

Ax , 2 pairs

Which two pairs?

And no naked aces are in villain's call range on the river unless we have a specific read telling us villain calls down light.

A3,AQ,A4,A7

you have too much respect for peoples play at 5nl , population calling AK otr all day

AQ is not limping, villain does not have that on the river.

A3s and A7s are both reraising turn. And there's only 1 combo of A3s and 2 combos of A7s if we have a set of 3's, even if they don't reraise turn because they're bad.

There's only 2 combos of A7s.

The way to approach any stake in poker is to play a fundamentally balanced range vs an assumed villain's fundamentally balanced range. Until we develop reads on villain, we cannot simply assume that he is playing incorrectly in a certain way. We only alter our playstyle when we can logically deduce that villain has AQ in his open limp range.

If we dive off the deep end and just make up hands that villain can have on the river to justify a bet with 33, then we might as well include hands like Q3 in villain's limp range too. We might as well just assume villain will call river with any Qs or smaller pocket pairs. Right?

Yes, every player at 5nl is a bad player, but they're bad in different ways. Villain could be the type that is tight, passive, and never bluffs. He might fold all naked aces to a turn bet because he's scared. In that case betting river is a disaster because we're not getting called by worse. There won't be worse on the river.

So we can't assume either way, we have to play fundamentally sound poker and assume the same of our opponent. Now if we check with 33's and noticed that he checked back a hand like AQ, then we can adjust to this information accordingly. But assuming AQ is part of the limp range is bad.

Its 5nl and the Villain in question limped pre. Why are you even mentioning balance? Completely pointless. Bet river w 33 obviously and get called by a billion of 1p hand...

bet/fold river is fine, we get called by a billion, maybe even a trillion one pair hands like chips mentioned. Jack I dunno why you are saying that we can't assume villain plays a certain way. It's not up for debate that the majority of micro players play too passively. I assume that my micro opponents are too passive until they give me reason to believe that they aren't, not the other way around. It seems to work out well especially when we rarely establish history with our opponents in zoom pools.

I... already explained myself? You approach any stake and any game with a balanced game so that you cannot be exploited. Then, as you gather more information from you opponents, you adjust your game to exploit your opponents.

The fact that you call playing poker correctly "pointless" is exactly why you remain a terrible player who spends his time trolling on this forum giving out terrible advice and attacking players who are leagues ahead of you.

And the reason I said villain is raising two pairs on the turn is what I've already explained. Absent any reads, you play against an assumed correct and balanced villain range. And on the turn, two pairs are supposed to be played with a raise from villain. And if you get to showdown and noticed he didn't raise the two pairs, then now you have actual information you can use to adjust your play based on his mistake. But until you get actual information, you cannot play against opponents exploitatively because you have no way to know how they are exploitable.

Please pay attention to the advice given before you go back to trolling because maybe you can actually improve your game enough to climb out of the micros.

Check calling seems bad - why turn a good hand into a bluffcatcher when villain has next to no bluffs but plenty of Ax and Qx. This is a spot OP should be in - we don't raise this junk pre so we check, we flop 2 pair with fish everywhere so we bet and keep betting - bet pot though and bet bet shove. So actually no we shouldn't be in this spot but only because our bets are too small.
As played I guess fold since this is always pretty nutted

not at micros. At micros you assume you are against a passive range as this is the overwhelming majority. When we rarely establish history with most fish in zoom pools and well over half of them play a passive style it makes no sense to immediately assume they are playing a "correct and balanced range" when we can immediately exploit their most common tendency. What you are saying is theoretically sound for mid stakes and higher, but it is just illogical to apply this vs a population that is without a doubt playing too passively. Establishing a history in these massive micro pools takes awhile, and most of the time you will discover that they are too passive so you might as well try to exploit passiveness off the get go

Seems weird to renounce population reads and generalities about early position limpers and then firmly pronounce that you know what villain does with two pair on the turn.

Also a bit confused as to how we get from villain raising most of the few better hands he can have (unless we're assuming he raises his one combo of 33 on the turn too) to not bet/folding river. Are we just giving him a load of backdoor club floats while we don't assume anything about his range?