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So during my session a hand came up with the two deepest stacks at the table. Both players are sitting about 1k deep at $1/$2. Hero in this hand is a young former online player who is definitely rolled to play higher than 200nl but it's all that's available in our city. Very good player but Villain views him as a nit (we know this from comments made by Villain before and after the hand). Hero views Villain as a solid player with the capabilities to blow up. Hero tells me how aggressive Villain was being from late position throughout the session.

Hero in this hand raises UTG with 5c5s to $8
MP player calls
Villain on the button 3bets to $50 and both players call.

Flop ($150) Ad5h4s
Hero checks
MP checks
Villain bets $55
Hero calls
MP folds

Turn ($260) 9c
Hero checks
Villain bets $200
Hero calls

River ($460) 7h
Hero checks
Villain bets $450
Hero???

How would you've played this hand if you could play it differently.

Preflop: i wouldnt raise a small pocket pair utg.With those stack sizes the call is somewhat questionable unless you think mp is going to call the 3 bet and the villain is aggo/bad enough to lose ~half his stack is you hit your set.If both the above conditions are yes i would probably call although a good player even if he does have a spesific range(QQ++,AK) is going to put hero in a world of hurt,if his 3bet range is wide there its a clearcut fold.
On the flop:Bingo we hit our set, we got 3rd nuts and we want to shovel money into the pot now.You didnt give a lot of info about villain 3bet range but i suppose he doesnt 3bet 3-2, so atm we only lose to AA.His small bet size is something i definetly dont like although its a rainbow board, no reason to get scared though.I will probably go for a small check-raise ~130, if he calls the pot is ~410 and he got 820 behind.If he 3bets our check-raise i would probably muck the hand unless he is a spewtard capable of doing it with AK.
OTTk since we got here he probably called by now, but id be wary of him calling our check-raise on the rainbow board.Donk betting ~175 here is in order imo since the only worst hand he is continuing here is AK. Top set is still in his range so i would probably fold to a shove.
OTR:We got to the river so he called our turn bet, now i think this is where live tells come into play.
The pot had bloated to 760 and we got around ~600 behind.I would evaluate how he called on the turn, did he snap called did he tanked or did he faked it.Our line seems really strong by now so i doubt we can get any more value out of the hand especially if he considers hero a nit.I would probably make a 150 bet here trying to get a crying call due to pot odds or given the pot size and the money behind i check here and snap-fold to a shove.If it goes bet-call or check-check you win, if he shoves your probably coolered/beat.
Try not to play OOP against good player.

Preflop: i wouldnt raise a small pocket pair utg.With those stack sizes the call is somewhat questionable unless you think mp is going to call the 3 bet and the villain is aggo/bad enough to lose ~half his stack is you hit your set.If both the above conditions are yes i would probably call although a good player even if he does have a spesific range(QQ++,AK) is going to put hero in a world of hurt,if his 3bet range is wide there its a clearcut fold.
On the flop:Bingo we hit our set, we got 3rd nuts and we want to shovel money into the pot now.You didnt give a lot of info about villain 3bet range but i suppose he doesnt 3bet 3-2, so atm we only lose to AA.His small bet size is something i definetly dont like although its a rainbow board, no reason to get scared though.I will probably go for a small check-raise ~130, if he calls the pot is ~410 and he got 820 behind.If he 3bets our check-raise i would probably muck the hand unless he is a spewtard capable of doing it with AK.
OTTk since we got here he probably called by now, but id be wary of him calling our check-raise on the rainbow board.Donk betting ~175 here is in order imo since the only worst hand he is continuing here is AK. Top set is still in his range so i would probably fold to a shove.
OTR:We got to the river so he called our turn bet, now i think this is where live tells come into play.
The pot had bloated to 760 and we got around ~600 behind.I would evaluate how he called on the turn, did he snap called did he tanked or did he faked it.Our line seems really strong by now so i doubt we can get any more value out of the hand especially if he considers hero a nit.I would probably make a 150 bet here trying to get a crying call due to pot odds or given the pot size and the money behind i check here and snap-fold to a shove.If it goes bet-call or check-check you win, if he shoves your probably coolered/beat.
Try not to play OOP against good player.

If villain 3 bets me on that flop im definately not folding. What player would 3 bet with top set on such a dry board, there is just no way.

Our hand is very much concealed imo, he thinks you are a nit, a nit doesnt open a small PP UTG and call a big squeeze.

I think a x/r into 2 players on this dry board looks very strong and we could lose the other player in the pot.

Villains small c bet doesnt look weak to me i think he has AA AK AQ and possibly the vast majority of the time so i expect him to barrel the turn. The only other hands that would squeeze pre and bet this small post would be KK QQ which we want to keep in the pot.

Basically i would flat to try and keep the other guy in and not force AQ KK QQ out of the pot by raising the flop. We can still get stacks in by x/r the turn.

We could lead the turn because it looks weird and might induce a confused call but we would not be able to play for stacks this way so i would x/r the turn and jam the river.

the peel is questionable but this deep i guess we still have implied odds, and his range should be strong enough to stack off a lot when we do hit.

i hate c/ring at any point unless you know he calls with AK

i dont lay live so let me know on this, do you really think villain crying calls AK, AQ on a board where there can be a ton of st8 draws? if so shove, if not, just snap call otr

I dont think many live players can get away from a x/r on the turn with AK, hell in my games they would get hella exited lol. The weird thing is that its 500bb deep which i have absolutely no experiance with live or online.

The big concern here with implied odds is that we have to be confident that the villain will actually stack off with worse into a 1000bb. That deep, lots of villains can find folds - even those you wouldn't expect to. So, we'll need a good read that we can realize our implied odds because we're crazy deep.

I agree with the concerns people have about preflop. If villain is willing to shovel money into the pot most times he flops top pair or an overpair then I think it's fine to call and see a flop. The villains I typically play against are the one Luke describes in his post rather than the ones euEra describes. It also sucks we are out of position, so it's going to be a bit more difficult getting max value for our hand if we spike.

I also do not like a check raise anywhere in this hand. If villain can hand read he's going to know we flopped a set. There are no draws in our range and we're probably not going to check raise AK this deep. So unless we'd be willing to check raise as a bluff to balance I prefer to c/c.

As played I am very concerned about the river bet. What does our hand look like to villain? AK/AQ?/55/44. He thinks we're a nit. Does he think he's going to get 3 streets of value from AQ? And by bombing the river? I doubt it. I guess he could be trying to get us off a chop, and for that reason I'd call. But I think villain is going to show up with AA or 99 a good percentage of the time.

As others have said, the river bet is not likely to be a value bet with worse. But I think it will be a bluff often enough that I would certainly call. Live players can easily bet KK on the flop and turn because they don't know what else to do and then on the river they realize they are bluffing but they see a big pot and want to win it.

I think that one of the psychological leaks that most live players have is that they feel like they are entitled to win the pot when they have a premium starting hand. So you'll see them inexplicably turn such hands into bluffs (either being aware of what they are doing or not) way more than you would if you are against competent players. Generally, only really bad or really good players tend to turn hands with showdown value into bluffs.

I don't think I would change a thing
Check/call against this villain seems like the perfect line with a set

Villains small c bet doesnt look weak to me i think he has AA AK AQ and possibly the vast majority of the time so i expect him to barrel the turn. The only other hands that would squeeze pre and bet this small post would be KK QQ which we want to keep in the pot.

First of all i never said that small cbet looks weak quite the opposite, with 2 players in the hand it looks super strop although the board is perfect for cbeting by villain.Secondly i firmly believe that this deep you must be able to fold sets or just take the money you won and go south.
I do give credit to hero for disguising his hand , but i dont like to check-call out of position in a 3bet pot even with sets on a dry board.Tbh the way played you either win or lose a monster pot,as i cant get a read about his hand.
One thing i know though is live poker aint like online, on the river he didnt click a button to bet pot he put in 450 dollars or 225bb whatever you like best.From my experience big bets like this on the river usually arent a bluff but the way played we cant find a fold.
Very interesting hand though i would really like to listen to what some good players have to say about it since the games i play are capped to 200-250bb and we rarely get this deep.

Btw guys i would not have played this hand pre flop the way hero did. Yeh i agree x/r the turn is bad actually, were never stacking off against worse, x/c turn and river are the best play imo we could never fold vs this line but we are losing the smallest pot possible, its just a cooler if he has AAA or turned 999 which actually seems likely, it would explain his bet sizing.

I guess the real question on the river is would he bet AK there, if not i could find a fold for sure, if so there are more combos of AK and a few terrible stubborn bluffs than AA and 99 so i would make a very easy call.

One thing i know though is live poker aint like online, on the river he didnt click a button to bet pot he put in 450 dollars or 225bb whatever you like best.From my experience big bets like this on the river usually arent a bluff but the way played we cant find a fold.
Very interesting hand though i would really like to listen to what some good players have to say about it since the games i play are capped to 200-250bb and we rarely get this deep.

This is my thought as well. For a typical live player to bet $450 on the river, it's always indicative of a huge hand. Like 95%. Obviously this is villain dependent, but this almost never happens live, from my experience. in 1/2, people don't typically make this kind of bet w/out something huge. To me, the hand really feels like AA, just from all the streets played. If he had AK, which is possible from the flop and turn play, I think he eliminates it when he bets $450 on the river. Villains really don't tend to do that with just one pair.

As sick as this spot is, because you've under repped your hand, I find a call as well.

Honestly I'd fold pre. This is just such a ridiculously large 3bet sizing.

As played I think you have to call down. After the flop I don't think raising really accomplishes that much.

Honestly I'd fold pre. This is just such a ridiculously large 3bet sizing.

As played I think you have to call down. After the flop I don't think raising really accomplishes that much.

dont you think in live this is indicative of a very strong hand, like AQs+, JJ+, maybe 10's? doesn't that help the fact that if we hit he generally has a strong enough holding to stack off on a lot of boards and runouts? Also on second thought if this is true, he may not be 3 barreling huge with weaker then AQ which makes this kind of gross bc villain may not be betting river huge with AQ tbh, maybe AK or we are beat

It's just the mechanics of how this spots works. We need to win a lot of money postflop when we hit our set because the preflop sizing is just so lol-large. If you work out how much we have to win postflop to set mine here it brings a lot of clarity to the spot.