I doubt V has a calling hand, should I raise the river with 2P?

He may not. But I’d give him the chance to get curious with Ax or Qx

I was struggling to come up with a raise size. I figured $120 or bigger and he’s not calling me with worse. If I raise smaller, he might re-raise me and it would be tough to call him.

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Raise a size you think your value target will call. In this case that’s Ax/Qx. I would make it $100. If he raises you, just fold. Nobody 3-bet bluffs rivers. Not to mention you have the nut advantage. You probably just value-own yourself if he has a better hand like A9.

I would go $100.

Why no c-bet? Why would it be hard to call a raise if you bet small? What could he have?

I put Ax, along with KK, QQ, 9X in my check-back range for this flop.

I was thinking he might think a river raise from me to be FOS, and then 3-bet me back, which would put me in a tough spot.

At this level, people are just not 3b bluffing river big or value raising with less than what you have at any reasonable frequency that you should be worried about.

I agree with Java on both the c-bet and the raise to $100 here.

I like the check back. You don't really want to go 3 streets with this hand. If the pot gets huge, you lose most of the time. Plus the turn either let him catch something with the Q, encouraged him to bet his own Ax, or greenlit a bluff attempt. All great for you when you hit the river.

OTR, I think you are seeing boogeymen. His perception of you is relatively tightish. To be able to 3! bluff on the river, he would have to view you as positively spewy and be trying to get into a leveling war on a dry runout. AP, you probably don't have AA, but you do have QQ that would probably play this way. Checking a flop with an overcard, you have no reason to raise the badugi turn, and then you raise for value on the river with a "please call me" sizing. So he can't get too out of line with that possible brick wall. Your description of yourself, you aren't raising with less than 2-pair here, a decent player knows better than to try to bluff someone off 2-pair+ on the river with a dry board. It's an iffy proposition if there is a flush or straight runout, disconnected and dry it's a horrible board to bluff for him.

If he comes back over the top, he probably stumbled into something like 44 or 66, and you can just fold very certain that he has the best hand. Much more often he has other Ax or Qx looking for thin value here and he might grudgingly call off if laid good pot odds.

Grunch:

PRE - If we think our image is that we're frequently OOL pre, I would probably just fold A6o, not raise with it.

FLOP - I like the check-back with a weak top pair. I think it would also be fine to c-bet small, with plans to check-back turn to induce a river bluff.

TURN - Since we checked back flop with a weak TP, I think we have to call here.

RIVER - V's river bet sizing looks like thin value or a bluff. We can get called by worse value, so a raise with 2P seems fine.

Generally I like playing off our short-term image. If we think we're perceived as too LAG recently, we can bet / raise more for value.

I might dial it back if we're not deep enough to raise-fold to a 3B, or if V is overly likely to be hoping to induce a raise by taking this line with AQ/A9/99. But most low-stakes opponents aren't going to be betting 2/3 pot on turn and 1/2 pot on river with a really strong hand once we call the turn.

I like everything about the hand so far. I probably go $95-$110 OTR and puke fold if he 3b’s. Stack sizes maybe affect this though.