1/2, $1.1k deep: AA on ugly river

Bet/fold the river yourself. I assume a fish will call down with JX here, so why check? Is he going to bluff? Is he likely to value bet a worse hand?

As played I would sigh call for half pot and expect to see a worse hand for value (or some fish spew) often enough.

Why is this an ugly river? Backdoor flushes are extremely rare in Hold Em - probably 80% of the time he has Jx, 5% 78s, the rest of the time a hand that's folding to any river bet. Flop is fine - I'd bet larger on the river to target Jx, river I'd bet/fold 200ish to get Jx to call. Checking is not good - he will now check back his worse hands, bets 78/better hands, maybe turns something into a bluff. As played I'd sigh/call - maybe he bets AJ/KJ here but I doubt that often.

PRE - raise bigger. At least $50, but $60 would be better.

FLOP - c-bet seems fine. Size seems fine. Might go a tad bigger, like $65-$75.

TURN - barreling seems fine. Half pot size seems ok, if we're concerned he might have some slow plays from the flop, or possibly gets here with J8 or 88.

The other size I might use here is an over-bet, to target all his JX and inelastic draws.

RIVER - kinda feels like we've run out of value.

We can bet-fold, but I don't think fish playing low stakes will bet or raise non-nutted hands often enough to think bet-fold is that much better than check-evaluate.

Like, is he really going to bet worse than 2P here? How often does he bet JX for value, and for $200 or more? How often does he turn SDV into a bluff just because we check?

It may feel MUBSy to check-fold, but look at the board from his perspective. Clubs came in. T9 and 65 came in. 87 is 2P. We could have a lot of strong TP combos, and all the over-pairs. He probably checks back here a lot, or bets smaller if he's bluffing or going for thin value.

I'd be happy to snap call if he bet $150-$175. Not happy to call $225.

Bet turn bigger, block bet river to get thin value

I would be bigger on flop and turn. OK with check river and would call that sizing.

Thinking about this more, and trying to figure out what hands open-limp in the CO, and then call a 3B, that we need to be concerned about on the river.

Think I'd be discounting 44/33/43 as folds pre or raises on flop or turn. I'd think T9s/87s would mostly fold flop. I'd think JJ/88/J8 would raise turn at some frequency. I'd think 77 would fold turn, if not flop. I'd think 65cc might raise turn at some frequency.

What jumps out at me are the 5-6 combos of JXcc and the other Broadway clubs combos of AKcc/AQcc/KQcc. Even if we discount those over-card combos as hands he'd likely raise pre, I still think he has 4-5 flushes in range. KJs/QJs/JTs/J9s all seem like hands he might limp-call pre. I've been here with an over-pair and gotten shown J6cc and J5cc.

The other class of hands that he might have in this line would be like TT/99 or occasionally QQ that didn't raise pre for whatever reason. He could also just have JXo and think it's good enough to value bet when we check, but I think all those worse 1P hands do a lot of checking back here.

Hard to fold getting just over 3:1. But he needs to be turning a worse 1P into a bluff or betting way too thin for value around 1/4 of the time for this to be a profitable call. I just don't see recs doing that often enough at these stakes.

Hey, OP, how about a read on the CO? A half-pot bet on the river by a non-bluffing tight player: fold. A half-pot bet by loose player who overvalues TPGK: call.