My first orbit at the table, so not much of a read on villain, against whom I haven't played before.

8 players at the table, UTG (villain with $101) in chips limps, and I raise max ($9) with Ah8s7d6h. Folds around and only villain calls.

Flop comes kind of alright (I can at least rep AA here) with Ac9c3s. I have TP in a HU pot. I decide to try out the idea of sub-pot bets in this situation (I think I'm going to go with that for a while and see how it pans out), so, checked to me, I bet here $13 into the pot of $22 (maybe a little TOO weak, but I really felt like that would have been my AA bet here). Villain calls.

Turn pot is thus $48, and the turn comes 5d, which significantly improves my hand, although clubs are still dangerous, and a low straight is possible. Checked to me again, I bet out $30 this time, and villain check-raises all-in for about $50 more.

I was really rather shocked at his bet here, as I felt like I had been repping AA the whole way, so I could almost only imagine his having some kind of 24--a bit strange drawing to a gutshot even for half pot, though. I (perhaps optimistically with clubs out there) count my outs at 9 and call.

First, if it really is 9, let's see if that's correct: Ok, I'm calling $50 for a chance at $150, so I'm getting right at 3:1. 9 outs with 40 cards left means 31 bad over and against 9 good, so not quite enough. If I have 6 it's even worse. Well, I think I have 6 outs more often than I'm ahead anyway (like he's still drawing to the nut flush maybe with a lot of straight outs but no or only a low pair).

I think I needed to have the discipline to fold this one.

In actuality, he had A754r and rivered a 2 for his own straight but check-raised with his 2 pair. So, in reality I had 11 outs since the board pairing the 9 gives me a better kicker with 2 pair.

In light of this guy's play of this hand and others, I concluded that he was a complete moron. But I think a few conclusions can be drawn:

First, I really need to check my outs more carefully on the turn. At 3:1 it still needs to be 10 clean ones.

Second, my passive flop bet was not interpreted (by an idiot anyway) as being AA. So, while sub-pot may be ok, more like $18 was probably in order, which is roughly 3/4 of pot.

So, flop bet was too small, and I needed to lay down on the turn despite the apparent improvement. I also think that it's probably generally a good idea at the Stars 1/2 not to assume that someone's a complete idiot until they prove it--hence being a bit cautious until you get a feel for the players.

I DEFINITELY bet full pot on the flop here, as that's what I (and I assume most other players) do with top set here. People are just looking for excuses to call with gutshots and crappy draws and you don't want to give them reason to, especially on a board that could well "develop" to a bigger draw (or back into 2 pair or something) on the turn.

I think on the turn I'd PROBABLY fold but if this guy has some trickiness/aggression it could be he's raising light on a draw and your ace is good, especially as he could have interpreted your bets so far as weakness. As you say it seems likely you don't have pot odds to call, unless you can add no-pair big draws and hands such as the one he had to his range.

I don't think it's a big mistake in any case - you're probably only going to lose 10 or 15 skansky bucks maximum here to any sort of likely range for this fella.

Well, I'm not too versed in these kind of subtleties of representing a hand by underbetting the flop (especially not since I play a lot on UB where mashing the BTP button still rules) but I'll say this. I only diverge from betting full pot if I want to manipulate pot sizes such that I can still fold to a raise (not getting commited) or in order to avoid, say, playing a big pot OOP when there is a lot of money left to bet (or, in rare cases, to feign weakness against an observant aggressive player).
I'm only betting 1/2 or 2/3 pots on the river, or when the board is paired and draws have become less relevant.

Moreover, if someone has only half a stack I'm not assuming he is an overly deep thinker, so that the idea that maybe you could be underbetting your hand could very well be lost on him. If you're stabbing at this pot, just BTP on the flop. I also wouldn't mind checking behind on the turn, as he doesn't seem to have the intention to fold and since you picked up a small draw.

Oh, and countless people on stars seem to play bottom set the way he played this hand.

Yeah, I think you guys are right. Sub-pot bet don't seem to work.

I think I also like your idea of checking behind on the turn, Oj. I got into trouble last night as well when I spiked 2 pair to my A on the turn (board AQ49) with one of these and got check-raised by AQQ, who had check-called the flop, very much consistent with your observation on bottom set.

I'm also beginning to think that even HU if you bet and get raised, your 2 pair is probably just no good--like being behind at least 80% of the time even if it's top 2.