Bluffed

By betting pot probably all worse hands are folding and you are only getting called by better right? So unless you are trying to turn your QQ into a bluff (which wouldn't be smart) then the small bet size is good.

What did you do on the turn?

By his logic people always bet big when they have a good hand and small when they are bluffing?

The only way his advice is useful is because you can use his thinking process against him in future pots.

Small flop bet’s totally fine.. going bigger doesn’t really change much vs a good player. Sometimes you just get bluffed and that’s poker.

You want to ask yourself why you are betting small on the flop. The worst reason is to do it because everyone else is.

People advocate doing this because they are playing a balanced game of value and bluff. They are looking to collect money from people who are willing to float any flop if it bet is cheap but will fold to strength. However, the key is betting bigger on the turn. Your villain "knew" that you had a weak hand when you didn't follow up with a stronger bet on the turn. Solution is to bet bigger on the turn if you are going to go do this or bluff catch if appropriate.

Maybe he just has a read on you? Do you always bet the same?

Stack size? Turn and river cards? Position of the Vs? It’s hard to give advice without the full info.

Suits?

Rainbow flop? I would usually bet ~$20 and that includes AA, K9s, 22, 99 and KK, so if the conclusion is that I must have missed, good luck.

The fact is that V waited until the river to make a move so I guess that your later betting pattern would have told him that you didn't love your hand rather than your correctly small flop bet.

If I was going to check any hands, it would be JJ and QQ and 3 ways I guess some rubbish I was planning to fold. So maybe consider a delayed cbet here.

I like your flop bet sizing. It folds out A hi hands and backdoor hands thereby denying them their share of equity (unless they are calling stations, then in which case hooray for us), and it wins the max we can expect from lower pocket pairs. However, I am torn between betting and checking this hand 3-ways. On the one hand, it's LLSNL, which makes it look like a 2 streets of value hand when we're IP, on the other hand, we are 3 ways, and that IMO is hugely impactful because the odds of us being beaten go way up. I would take what Villain said to you with a grain of salt. Sometimes people want to get in your head and make you think what they want you to think so they can play you more easily. I'd just study up on more GTO style bet sizings to ensure what he's saying is gibberish, then hammer for value exploitatively when we have donks in the pot who pay big bets when they shouldn't. All in all at the low stakes I'm not upset to see this one go. I'd prob check flop and call 1 turn or river bet depending on size and action, then expect to see K2o rolled over by opp.

The advice I seek is whether to pot the flop faced with an overcard. Not this specific hand but in general. Is this a good time to mix up your play. Is there ever a time to pot the flop and bet small on the turn? Maybe I’ve been doing it the other way too much.

The turn was another king & I bet pot, but villain floated again, before shoving the river.
The river was a nine, so there was 2Pair on the board. V already thought I didn’t have a king, so another didn’t bother him. And now I had to consider him having a nine.

He showed AJ, a pretty pure bluff connecting with nothing. Yet, he called the turn, probably already planning to shove the river. In theory, I’m pretty sure he should have folded the turn.

Villain plays an over-aggressive style and takes big swings when hitting or missing. Maybe I gave something away with my disappointment with a king high flop? Maybe he just thought he could make me fold?

I think a lot of you would say I played this well, but I still got outplayed. I continue to search for answers. Maybe I need to call the turn with nothing OOP and shove the river.

OTF: the small (range-) cbet ip seems absolutely standard to me. You might want to bet close to pot with 99 and AK, but you have a bunch of KX yourself, which should still bet small. Plus, assuming you try to be balanced, which bluffs are you betting pot with? All this seems especially true since you are 3-way to the flop.
Anyway, V's assumption that you never have a King in this spot is completely wrong imo, unless he has some read that you would bet big with any KX.

OTT: when the K pairs, I'd rather bet smallish again, even check back at some frequency.

I would play the hand differently. As adonson rightly mentioned above, suits matter so we're missing information. But assuming I bet flop, I would x turn.

Potting the turn seems terrible to me since we have good showdown value on a dry KKxx board, so why are we trying to force a fold, are we bluffing? If we are bluffing, are we trying to get a King to fold? If that's the case, then shove river and pray I guess.

The takeaway here isn't that betting flop small is bad, regardless of whatever is going on the villain's head or what he's trying to con you into thinking.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be outplayed. You are not being outplayed if you get bluffed once. You ARE being outplayed if Villain makes one remark and forces you to adopt a suboptimal flop c-betting strategy as a result. Always bet 1/3 pot on this flop unless you can exploit a calling station by betting all of your Kx and better for 3 streets at pot or near pot. If Villain is floating AJ here with no flush draw, he is overcalling based on nonsense he thinks he observed. This does not necessarily make him a calling station, as he appears to be aggressive and thinks he has "good plays to make", but he is nonetheless overcalling and the proper way to exploit him here is rather to bluff less and continue to bet 1/3 pot on flop with only your strong hands, then bet turn with these strong hands when they improve and snap call river. On this particular flop, given the level of aggression you are likely to face when Villain gets his little hunches, anything less than top pair does not qualify as a strong value hand. Play pot control and be more inclined to call down when he fires turn and river, because when he "senses weakness", he's clearly liable to fire recklessly.

i dont see much reason to bet the flop here vs two players. i probably even check vs one. id bet TT and JJ though.

Great advice, thanks everyone
My takeaway is that I overplayed the hand, instead of using pot control. Turn bet was a mistake, trying to be aggressive, but as pointed out, was turning my hand into a bluff.

I feel like something to hang my hat on finally. In this situation, I play more defensively in the future. Turn my hand into a bluff catcher, instead of charging ahead.

I will see this guy again and feel more confident in facing him. He’s reckless when he senses weakness & I can take advantage. Being bluffed once is not being outplayed was something I needed to hear.

Thanks, but I am put off by the solver mentality. You didn’t put suits so I can’t answer your questions. You took the wrong line, so I can’t help you. If you can’t help me, then comment somewhere else please, but thanks to the majority of you.

One of the cool things about playing live is you can attempt to manipulate his own sensation of weakness. A lot of online pros get computer brain and think this sort of playing doesn't work, but some of the best in the world (Jungleman for example) base some amount of their live play on psychological manipulation. Do to this fish what he tried to do to you, but do it BETTER with a solid fundamental baseline of how to play poker well.

I think you missed their points. There are pointing out things that you need to gather to make the right decisions. That's actually valuable to consider in the future. One of the best posts in 2+2 history was limon's "Random Shyt" post. You can search for it if you are interested. In short, the moral of the story is to avoid the mistakes in the beginning that put you in a situation where you are asking for advice on how to avoid a bad result.

FWIW, once you make a thread, you don't get decide who you want to hear from or not. If you don't like the message, ignore it.

If you want only specific advice tailored to your personal needs, stick a crowbar in your wallet and pay for private coaching.

You’re right, I must get better at ignoring people on here. Lot of funny people with not much to offer.

It takes awhile to separate the winners from the losers just like it does playing the game.

There are great posters here like brokenstars, and though I got off to a bad start, some guys are engaging with me now and that makes me very happy.

This is my problem, because most of you are helpful, but there’s always a few that I’d like to be standing face to face and ask them to say that sh_t again. Working harder on ignoring them.