Only ~50 hands with villain in my database and this was fairly early in this session. Preflop he's relatively passive, running at about 20/8 but a call open of about 20 too. Had a fold to CB of 75%, though it's obviously a small sample.

Thinking about the 98 hand I posted in my connector thread, I have a hard time distinguishing when I should fire a 2nd bullet for value and when doing so is pointless because a worse hand won't call and a better hand won't fold. I checked with the intention of calling a small river bet but was surprised when he fired pot.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (9 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($12.61)
UTG+1 ($3.80)
Hero (MP1) ($5.13)
MP2 ($2.89)
MP3 ($2.50)
CO ($5.25)
Button ($5.72)
SB ($0.62)
BB ($2.60)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K, K
2 folds, Hero bets $0.15, 1 fold, MP3 calls $0.15, 4 folds

Flop: ($0.37) A, A, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.20, MP3 calls $0.20

Turn: ($0.77) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20

River: ($1.17) J (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets $1.17, Hero folds

Total pot: $1.17 | Rake: $0.07

You played it fine. Betting out on the turn is pretty unecessary, and folding the river looks correct. The whole small turn bet big river bet thing is often a strong hand.

Being OOP here kinda sucks. In position I could check back all day long on turn and either call river or bet river for value. Turn is villain dependent, with this villain he seems to fold whenever he doesn't connect on the flop. So it's safe to say that he has a pair or A here. I think the idea of c/c turn and folding to river is a good one.

Your flop bet should be bigger imo. Let's think about what this particular villain is going to call with or fold with on the flop. If he has trips he will either call or raise, if he has a pocket pair he will almost always flat call, if he has nothing he will always fold. So if you had K high, a half pot bet will get him to fold his nothing and when he has something you get called, but only lost a half pot bet. With KK you fare very well against his calling range. So if you bet something like 30c here you will still get folds from the no pair hands, but you are going to be getting 10c more value from the pocket pairs that you crush.

I mean I know varying your bet sizing to villains is a tell, but it's a difficult one to pick up on unless you've played a lot of hands with each other and they are paying attention etc. Heads up I will bet differently based on hand strength all of the time.

I'm not sure the bigger bet will accomplish anything. He's still going to call or raise with an Ace, will likely call with a PP, and will fold garbage. He's certainly not going to call $.20 with nothing but fold for $.30. I might make a bit more off the weaker hands, but it will be balanced out by the times I'm losing more to the bigger hands. In general I tend to not bet more than I need to in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish.

I also thought at the time that if I bet bigger he might think, "He probably doesn't have an Ace because if he did he'd probably want to entice me to call with a smaller bet." So by betting a bit smaller he doesnt' know whether I'm playing cautious or trying to suck him in with a monster.

I bet half to 2/3 on each street and fold to a raise on the turn or river.

You're proving my point.

The point is that his calling range is going to be identical to a 20c bet as it would be for a 30c bet. So if you have nothing, bet 20c he'll call and fold the same hands anyways, might as well save the 10c. If you have something bet 30c, because he'll call and fold with the same hands as before.

If two bet sizes are going to give you the exact same results the you should mess with them to get you the best situations, you'd be playing perfect poker if you could always bluff with the smallest possible amount and bet for value with the biggest possible amount. 20c and 30c aren't definitely the smallest and biggest amounts, but those will work. Maybe he'll do the exact same thing if you bet 10c or if you overbet to 50c, I dunno, but if I did know, I'd be bluffing when I bet 10c and betting 50c when I had a value hand.

I think you played it conservatively. You can control the table by betting agressively. I say trust your gut. If you think the other guy has a better hand, then folding your cowboys was the right thing to do. If you think he is still on a draw, then try to bet him out of the pot. Doyle Brunson said, "The key to No Limit Hold'em is to make the other man decide whether or not to push in all his chips."

Super System is a crap source today IMO.

And if someone is on a draw against you, the key is to bet an amount he will call where he isn't getting the proper odds. You technically don't want him to fold.

The key to NLHE today is to valuebet and profit.

Truth! Preach! Amen, etc...