£1/£1 Cash game in Coventry, currently sat with about 180 bbs.
New guy has sat down at the table, not really seen much of him so far but has been getting involved.
He"s sat about 4 seats to my right and i"m in the BB.
He raises it up to £4, button calls and i call with qs 
.
Flop comes down 9-2-2 rainbow.
I bet out £6, original raiser flat calls, button folds.
Pot is now £25.
Turn comes 4. I check, original raiser bets out £12. I call.
Pot is no £49.
River comes another 2.
I check. Original raiser now overbets the pot with a bet of £64.
Intrigued as to what others think here.....
not a fan of calling with Q9 here, i"d prefer 3bet or fold.. as played after donk betting flop with a turn 4 i can"t see any merit to checking tbh... 1/2 pot plus the turn is ok imo, after choosing to take the line of cc"ing turn and getting pretty much a good river 2, then you check fold river?
you have played it so strange given the board texture don"t u think? that villain will feel he can blast u out of the pot..
i wouldn"t be averse to check raising turn with the view that we met get villain off some better hands occasionally
but also get some calls from T9 J9 98 etc from the odd spewy random villains...
Don"t want to over-inflate the pot with my holding and by checking it shows "weakness" and gives him a chance to figure that betting out with his AK, AQ (etc) hands will win the pot.
by betting the turn or river at least u make sure he ends up calling and feeling owned with worse 9"s 88 77 etc, don"t be handcuffed by traditional thinking by not betting u look like ur a passive fish he can **** all over [just imo
]
by checking the turn 4 on this texture it makes your flop lead look nebulous at best..
looking at the board texture, yourself and villains line of play, the bet sizing and your positions, the stake level etc there are certain lines which basically scream that your opponent or yourself has mid level nonsense to absolute dog**** hence u set yourself up for aggro villains to bluff-jam rivers... call his river bet and adjust afterwards imo..
added later -
pot control when out of position is difficult, after all as a concept it is best used in position
reasons why people want to pot control oop is because they are afraid of getting raised if they bet mostly is it not? depending on board texture if say we bet out either on the flop or the turn we must take into account how likely villain is to raise and what sort of range he"s repping when he does raise, at small stakes vs weak players, bet/folding is going to be superior to pot controlling most of the time imho.. against tougher, more balanced opposition, pot controlling in some of these situations gets a little better but against tough competition pot controlling one to many spots turns your hand face up, and they will play better against you... its the pot control versus value/protection concept question, in general i"d say the more likely draws (or worse hands in general) are in your opponents hands, the more likely you should be to bet... if it"s a spot where villain could have draws but could also have tons of better TPs, two pairs, etc., then we should be less likely to bet... likewise the less co-ordinated the board is and the lower your kicker is the more likely we should check because less hands call our bet or suck out on subsequent streets...
its been a while since i have thought about it [pot control v value] tbh, in example terms As2s on Ah9h7s wants to bet aggressively on the flop and turn because the combinators in villains range are weighted towards more hands we value bet than say As2s on Ah3c3s where fewer hands we"re ahead of call multiple streets...
meh tough to say do this do that, this is bad, this is good etc etc blah blah, without reads/info or the oppo"s tendencies to go by its tough to say how we can realistically try and control the pot size, but still achieve the goal of minimizing our losses and maximising our gains...
the best form of pot control here in this spot is to fold pre
lol... the check raise turn may seem oddball but its pot controlling differently in that u can still fold out worse/better sometimes but also if u check river then a lot of opponents will check behind the river also... meh all depends on your style of play PantsMan, in the end only u can work out what is suitable for your own style of play, as long as u develop creativity rather than rules
then fold call raise whatever
