Flopped the nuts against a LAGgy fish and he is check-raising

Against this guy I bet 1/4 so he can check raise bluff again.

This makes sense. I get too hung up on "playing well" versus these guys and tend to just forget how far I should be deviating against them.

Bet/bet and get those last two streets of value against overpairs, trips, and lower flushes.

Bets

Why not 3B him on the flop, when we didn't 3B pre, flopped the nuts, and he check-raises? What better opportunity will we get, when we opted to smooth call pre, instead of 3B'ing him? This is a perfect spot to put in the 3B.

The pot is small, our hand is severely under-repped, few low stakes players have a check-raise-fold button, and this dude might have a check-raise-spaz-jam button. We have the best hand, and should be looking to build the pot now, before the board runs out scary and shuts down the action, which happens a lot on monotone boards.

I wouldn't necessarily assume anything about his hand just because he does a spade check after he's acted. I'd consider that more before he acts. He could just be double-checking his hole cards because he x/r'd, and you snap called. He might be wondering if he's living in a dream, where you're calling him with a worse flush than he has.

The turn changes the nuts, so I'd probably bet small, like 40% pot, $40-$45. I could also make an argument for checking, to induce V to bluff or bet worse for value on the river. Or we could over-bet, and fold to a raise, or check-back if he calls our bet and checks to us on the river.

The problem here is that because we didn't raise pre or 3B the flop, we've done nothing to make V think a king-high flush might not be good, so he could raise with a worse value hand, or a boat (or quads).

We can't fold if we bet small and he raises. We can't fold if we check back and he bets river. The only way to find a fold is to over-bet and fold to a raise.

Thanks for the suggestion about the bet-3b. One of the leaks in my game is that I tend to default to calling with value in position in spots where I should be more strongly considering raising. Think I would bet-3b a LOT if I was OOP and the flop went H bets V raises. I also think I would be more likely to bet-3b in position with a smaller flush, which might be incorrect.

I will admit that I don't often see the "spade check" AFTER a player has acted. That being said, I basically NEVER see someone spade check as a reverse tell at this level (in this instance someone could spade check a flopped flush OR a flopped set as a reverse tell) although I know that some people do it. It always seems like people are genuinely double-checking the suits of their hole cards, whether it is because they genuinely don't know or just reflexively want to double-check.

That being said, I could definitely be reading WAY too much into this action. Early on in my poker journey I started double-checking the suits of my cards before every single flop, even when I have a suited hand (or something like red aces) that is easy to remember. Despite the fact that I visibly do this every single hand, I still get V's that do corny "live read" table talk bullshit like, "Oh! He double-checked his cards! He must have a monster." So trying not to be that guy here...

Most assume the hole-card check is a suit check. It often is, but not always. It depends on the order of actions, and other info.

Like, if someone reflexively checks their cards as soon as the flop comes out, and the board has 2 of a suit, that's often a suit check. But it could also be a "did I really just flop the nuts" check.

If action gets to someone, and then they check their cards, and then they check back, it's often a "yep, still just a draw" tell. But if they check the cards, and then bet, it's often a "just wanted to make sure my hand is what I think it is" tell, indicating strength.

If someone acts, and then they check their cards afterwards, that's often a "I really do have a big hand" tell, but could also occasionally be a "what sort of cards am I hoping to see on the next street, and what am I doing on each" tell.

Odds are, if someone was going to check their suits, they'd do it reflexively on the flop, before action gets to them, or before betting / calling, not afterwards, though it's not impossible that he was in fact checking his suits.

Bottom line, it's important to consider the context before deciding V is just checking his suits. I try to memorize my cards before the flop, and yet I still often compulsively check my cards to make sure I'm nutted and didn't mis-read my hand.

As for the flop action - I generally don't like slow-playing big hands on the flop, especially not if I was out of line pre, or opted to slow-play a hand I could have raised pre. It's hard to flop the stone nuts, and hard to get value when we do. I think it's usually best to just fast play it for max value.

Appreciate all of the input. Clearly a very low-stress spot, but I really enjoy typing these out and this one has somewhat of a fun reveal:

People get so wrapped around the axle worrying about losing value when they fast play that they lose value when they slow play.

If this guy is opening 72o and check-raising the flop, there's a non-zero percent chance he tries to rep our exact hand if we 3B him, or calls an audible and tries to rep a boat on a board pair.

I would mostly expect him to fold to our flop 3B, but some sliver of the time, he won't. We're not losing value either way, if he's just going to give up and check-fold the turn.

We could also flat call the flop check raise, and check back the turn to induce him to bluff river, but if course then we're giving him tons of rope, and we can never fold.

These type of players are common at low stakes. They try to use aggression to compensate for a lack of skill and patience. I think I'd be raising and 3B'ing this guy relentlessly pre-flop, and under-folding to him post-flop.