This is a £50 deepstack tournament from a week ago, we’re about an hour in on level 4. Blinds are 150/300, no ante. I’m the effective stack with about 25,000, villain has about 35,000.
Up to this point I’ve hardly played any hands and haven’t been in any pots with the villain. He was a jovial character, mid 20’s good fun to have at the table but wasn’t taking the game very seriously. He had played just about every hand and I had a couple of reads on him- he would donk lead out of position with any draws, was check-raising a lot of turns and putting people in difficult spots and was calling down very light. In one hand with KQ he called down a check-raise and 2 more barrels on a QTT89 board and said “I’m just too strong to fold” (he doubled up… opponent was bluffing with nut flush draw).
This is the hand – utg opens to 650, I look down at AA and raise to 1400, villain flats from sb and utg comes along.
Flop (pot 4500) QT7… I bet 1,800, villain calls and utg folds.
Turn (pot 8,100) 8 … check, check
River (pot 8,100) 3 villain bets 7,500
Ok, so when I checked the turn it was with the intention of calling virtually any river but the way he acted just seemed as though he had a huge hand, it was so different to when he was bluffing. When he was bluffing he would pick up his chips and very quickly chuck them in. This time he looked back at his cards (1st time I’d seen him do that) then spent an age cutting out his chips, fumbling them, going back to them again, looked like he was going to bet 5000 then changed his mind and added some more. To meet all looked pretty strong.
My questions are: How did I play the hand? Is the turn check too negative? I did it for pot control and to not be blown off such a strong hand by such an aggressive player. I also didn’t think that draws were a big part of his range given how had done led with them on previous hands and bluffed on the river when he missed.
Should I consider folding given the size of the bet and the fact his range looks pretty strong here? Is the live read enough to make me fold? I’ve only recently started playing live poker and am not always sure when to use the tells I’ve picked up.
Thanks!