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I'm in the BB with 22. Like 3 players limp in, and the SB makes it $12 dollars, I call and the limpers all call as well. I am about 100bb deep with SB, and between like 40 and 300bb deep with the limpers.

Never played with SB before, and he's been at the table for probably like 25 minutes. I hadn't seen anything from him at the time - he limped in a few times, played passively in general, and I hadn't seen any showdowns. This is the first hand I'd seen him raise. I've been playing straightforwardly and was semi-card-dead so my image should be clean vs. him.

Flop comes AJ2r. He bets out $25 into like $50-$60 dollar pot and I flat, and 20-something-year-old kid who looks like a huge newbie to poker calls, leaving himself like $20 dollars left, the rest fold. Turn is a J, making the board AJ2Jr. SB checks, and I check. My reasoning here was that SB's range likely consists of:

A) AK/AQ hands that are scared that someone just hit trip Jacks,
B) AA, JJ, or AJ/KJ/QJ/JT hands that are slow playing for w/e reasoning (though I don't expect AJ/KJ/QJ/JT to be in his range a ton - I would expect him to just limp in with that most of the time given what I had seen from him. I also expect there to be more AK in his range than AQ for the same reasoning).
C) QQ/KK hands that bet the flop for some reason to try and take it down right there, to "see where he's at," or out of sheer frustration/tilt that he raised QQ/KK and "an Ace hits the flop every goddamn time!" Or for any other flawed reasoning that causes me to see the player population bet with those hands in similar spots some percentage of the time.

I think part C folds to a turn bet every time and if he has part B that sucks. Part A probably only calls 1 more bet but also folds sometimes and rarely calls 2 bets (these 1/2 games I play in are pretty damn nitty compared to what a full table of online fish would be, and honestly I've seen a ton of ridiculously nitty folds in these games and so I usually assume someone who has been playing tight/passive and hasn't shown me much is risk-averse and can fold good 1 pair hands to a lot of pressure). I also think I have a better chance of getting a big bet called on the river than on the turn since the river bet doesn't impose the threat of future bets, and checking back and betting river makes my hand look weaker (like I can have a missed gutshot or just an Ax hand that thinks it's good). So basically, I think he will have MUBS with part A of his range a lot of the time and put me on a Jack if I make a sizable turn bet. The other player only has a little bit left, so I figure anything he puts it in with on the turn is also putting it in on the river.
--> While this reasoning makes sense to me given how these games play, I still think checking was a mistake and FPS and it would have been better to just bet the turn like $50 bucks and hope this guy spazzes and makes an "oh-fuck-it-I-have-so-much-invested-I'm-so-attached-I-hate-when-people-suck-out-on-my-TPTK" turn and river call.

As it played out, I check and the young kid bets $9 into a $130 pot haha. The SB just flat calls. So I'm like "wtf is going on!?" I guess I still put SB on the same range as above. I was really confused though and made it $30 pretty quickly without taking as much time as I should have. I really don't know wtf I was thinking and can't really come up with a good reason other than that after I checked I realized how stupid and FPS it was and so decided to make a bet. Anyway, the young kid calls and is all in, and the SB flats me as well.

The river is a brick and the SB donks $100 into a $20 sidepot and an about $210 main pot. What do I do? I mean, this line is usually the nuts (even though the bet is only half the main pot, it's still a really big bet in live poker), but there's also a pretty big spazz factor in live poker and I think the ridiculousness and confusion of this hand can make the spazz factor even higher.

I'd bet the turn. It's possible that villain is slowplaying the nuts, but a lot of players will also go into c/c mode with AK/AQ. I also wouldn't be surprised if villain c/c turn with KK/QQ.

As played I would call the river. Even against a super tight betting range, you are actually doing alright.

www.pokerstrategy.com
Board: JdAh2sJc4h
Equity Win Tie
MP2 37.50% 37.50% 0.00% { 22 }
MP3 62.50% 62.50% 0.00% { AA, JJ, AKs, AJs }

You can substitute AQ, or KJ, or QJ in for AKs. Point is to show that villain doesn't need that many worse hands to make river a profitable call.

im calling, If he boated up on the turn he most likely wouldnt have checked the turn. Also i find most "worse" players will check the flop if they hit a set on a high board. He could have a bunch of Jx hands QJ, KJ, J10s

Getting about 3-to-1 and not really sure exactly how wide his range can be here (both for value plus random spazz bluff) and losing to only a few combos of hands, I am pretty happy to call. Of course, as evidenced by the other threads, I tend to call more in live than perhaps is prudent in some games, perhaps influenced by my perception of the particular player pool I play against.

Keep in mind that you never represented the strength of your hand at any point and your opponent's line, while possibly a LOL-live getting tricky with a nutty hand line, is consistent with a lot of weaker hands. specifically trip jacks. I also wouldn't be stunned (though I wouldn't expect it), assuming the turned jack brought a backdoor flush draw, to see him show up with a hand like KQs that he turns into a bluff into the mostly dry sidepot because he doesn't know what he is doing. I also wouldn't be stunned to see him show up with blanks full of jacks (blank being the river card).

Nobody folds pre? Unless the limper I'm 400BB deep with is a fish that will pay off, I'm folding 22 in that situation.

Flop as played, I open bet the turn 100 into 125ish. I'd do this as a bluff to rep trips or better so I want to showdown the goods here vs. the short stack who is going to call, or one should hope. If I get x/r by the SB, I'm going to have to call I guess, unless he's the type of player that never x/rs trips or worse there.

Turn as played, yeah, I don't think I can resist calling the river, though I probably should.

@HRPaperstacks - I'm calling this all the time. We're getting stack odds to justify setmining against a likely tight range. I don't think we're often going to get 3bet by one of the limpers, so $12 (actually $10 more since we're BB) is likely the price we'll have to pay to see the flop. Our position will kind of suck postflop despite having position on the preflop raiser because we'll be sandwiched between him and the limpers, so we might not be able to extract max value from the field if we flop a set. However I think we'll still make enough to make a call correct.

I would bet ~$50 on the turn for the following reasons:
A. If he has AK/AQ then I think you would be missing value by checking. He's probably afraid of Jx or a set, so he might fold to a big bet. However I think there's a good chance he calls 2 smaller bets.
B. If he has KK/QQ you're probably not going to get any money out of him on the turn or river. Why check and give him the free shot to spike his 2 outer on the river?
C. If he has AA/JJ/AJ it really sucks, but there is a small chance he can have KJ/QJ/JT or a hand like KQs that sweetjazz3 mentioned.