A HU hand

I've thought more and more about a HU hand I won last night, where the result was the difference between a losing night and breakeven night. This is long by the way. First some history about villain. I looked him up very early, and surely enough he had the nutz. Now this guy was tight in the sense that, if he called a cbet/turn bet, he usually had something worth showing down. Top pair or 2nd pair, sometimes much better. In other words he folded a lot to bets. Because of this, I'd raised almost ATC from the button and cbet about 80% of my flops, checking only very average flops and the occasional top pair/2nd pair hand to balance out a range or extract value against a weaker hand. And it was profitable. I could easily release if I didn't hit and he called my cbet or raised. I didn't easily get a feel for his bets, as I rarely had something to look him up with, and he wasn't betting as much as he was calling. He did slowplay a monster though, when he raised AQs and flopped a flush (2nd time he hit the nutz on me) and got minimum value against my top pair hand. His PF betting was fairly erratic, going from limping, to minraising to 4x raising, but the 4x were more often solid hands from what I saw, so I gave his bigger PF bets more credit. Since I was pounding him from the button, I started to notice some 3 bets coming my way. I 4 bet the first one, and he folded, so I knew he wasn't always super strong, but he still kept 3 betting, to which I folded a couple of times.

So the hand comes up, and I'll try to follow through with my feelings at the time:

Stacks are about 80BB's effective, which is what he has. I raise KJs from the button, he 3 bets medium sized, like 2.5x. Now he'd most recently 3 bet about 4x, and the time I'd 4 bet and he folded, it was also 2.5x sized, so I started thinking that like his button betting, his 3 betting raise size was hand dependant as well. I figured against a 6 max TAG, KJs was crushed a lot, but in HU, KJs is much less rarely crushed IMO. It can be behind hands like AT/TT/AQ but being crushed is like a AK/KQ/AJ where you have only one good pair to hit. That is if the flop comes down A84 and he has AT, you can easily let go of KJ, but if it's J84 and he has AJ, you are set to lose money, so you want to avoid those situations as much as possible. Anyway, people don't wait for AK/KQ/AJ at HU, and he had been especially active in 3 betting lately, so I called figuring I'd continue on a couple of streets if I flopped top pair. Board comes down K64r, beautiful. He cbets about 2/3 pot. I continue on with my read that I'm probably good here most of the time, but a big raise will just scare off a worse PP or missed AT type hand, and my hand is very unlikely to be drawn out on, with only an ace to scare me, so I just call. It's mostly a blank as he didn't 3 bet K9/96, might have sucked out with 99. He bets 2/3 pot again. All my thoughts here were "does he really have a hand here AA/AK/KQ?" There was a fatal flaw with this thinking, but I'll come back to that. He'd been 3 betting me a bit, and I'm really far ahead of his range here, only his continued betting makes his range really narrow in. I called, hoping he's continuing on with a KT/QQ/JJ/TT type hand, or just bluffing, figuring I'd check behind a checked river. It's a complete blank and he bets his last $8 giving me over 4 to 1 on the call, so I have to make it and he turns over A9 and leaves the table.

Now, up until the turn, I think things are OK from both players. I'll look at things from here from both perspectives. Firstly, mine. Now I was thinking "AA/AK/AQ?", what I should be thinking is "what does he double barrell here?" I mean, lets say he had QQ, board is K64r, he cbets which is fine, but why double barrell and pot commit yourself on the turn? The board is so lacking in draws, that he can't think I'm drawing to a flush or straight, as they just aren't there, so he's either way ahead or way behind if he has QQ. So my read was I'm behind AK/KQ/AA/KK/99 now, but ahead of QQ/JJ/TT/88/77/KT/K8 made hands, and bluffs probably ace high bluffs by now, like AQ/AJ or maybe A9/A6/A4. But those QQ-TT hands have way too much showdown value to bet and pot commit themselves here. I don't know for sure he understands pot control like that, but most people do shut down on the turn even if they don't. In fact checking down the river as well with QQ, may be most profitable mover after the cbet is called. Because even though I can hold a weaker PP, I'm as likely to hold a king after calling a 3 bet and then his cbet. So my biggest mistake was not noting that some hands I had crushed will mostly be pot controlling this turn card, turning my hand into a bluff catcher. For this reason, and the fact I haven't seen him bluff much yet, this should be a fold on the turn. I should be ahead of only bluffs, and even though it's HU and top pair is the nutz, there is too much evidence now that I'm crushed.

Now from his point of view. I'd been betting too much from the button, so A9o figured to be miles ahead of my range, so a 3 bet is OK. I don't love it, as A9 can be called by dominating hands, but some players out there will call with worse aces too. He then cbets the flop. There is nothing wrong here. His hand may be the worst here, like against some smaller PP's/65s or even better aces like AJ so getting them to fold would be good. Also even the hand he does beat may bluff the turn and A9 really isn't strong enough to call a bet with, so might as well try to take it down. But either way a cbet should be profitable as a king is in his 3 bet range. Now the turn is a 9, giving him 2nd pair. Betting here was a huge mistake. I'd paid him off earlier when he hit his flush, so it's reasonable to assume I can't fold top pair. However there are no reasonable draws, and most PP's I was holding have either setted up or are crushed by his pair on 9's now. So he's putting in far too much of his stack hoping to fold ony QQ/JJ/TT, as anything else I hold is a 2-6 outer against his now relatively strong hand. I think he was either thinking my call of the cbet was with a weak king and that I'd now fold thinking he's AA or AK, or that he has me crushed now and wants extra value. Yes, the folding a king should be possible, but he has no proof I could do that here, so without that read, it's burning money. The river is neither here nor there. If he bet the turn because he thought he was ahead, then he may as well bet the river too, as he'll realistically call a river bet from me even though his hand is relatively weak.