A Mistake I Made Last Night.

I wanted to go over a hand I played last night in a live $2/$3 game. Stacks are $300 effective. Villain is a good $2/3 reg, he sees me as TAG most likely even though I'm pretty LAG. I view him as TAG preflop, can get tricky postflop, and a thinking player.

Preflop folds to me I raise to $10 with 8Th from mid position. Villain calls in CO and a couple other callers we see flop.

Flop is Qh5h4x. Checks to me and I bet $20. Villain min raises to $40 and I call.

Turn is a Jc, goes check check.

River is a 7d and I give up and check and he wins with A4h.

Here's my analysis: First my preflop raise while not bad for a player of my skill in a game this weak, not great. Certainly fold should be standard but raising here 1/3 times I get this hand in this position is OK.

Flop is OK. I should have bet $30. But it's not that big of a deal. Reasons I should be more, well I just think it saves me from having to fire a second barrel on misses sometimes, wins me more when I hit the flush. And I don't like reraising him at all.

Turn is whatever I don't have a leading range in this spot.

River is where I made the mistake. I remember thinking there is about $100 in the pot, if I bet $50 it has to work about 50% of the time, and I think he decided to pot control like KQ, QT on the turn. This is wrong and I realized it as soon as he turned his hand over and felt really dumb. If he had a hand he wanted to pot control he would start pot controlling on the flop and just call. Also he doesn't have AQ very often because he's reraising, and QJ he's betting the turn for sure. So really it's KQ or QT. I think he flats QT on flop 100% and raises KQ sometimes. But there is like a ton of draws / flush draws of which I beat none on the river. And those are more likely hands to raise the flop than a 1 pair. (He can't have 2 pair because he would bet the turn with it) So I missed a chance to bet $50 or $60 like I actually would with KQ and it cost me a $100 pot.

I guess on the river I didn't fully analyze it and gave up too quick, but when you put someone on a hand for a reason (me putting him on a 1 pair queens) you should make sure all his actions are congruent with the reason you think he has it. (me thinking he was pot controlling turn is not congruent with his raise on the flop)