I'm UTG($45) with and raise to $.85

Both the SB($15) and BB($10) call

Flop:

They both check to me and I bet the pot, $2.50

SB raises to $5, BB folds. I call $2.50

Turn is

Pot is $12. SB checks.

I bet $6. SB nearly lets his time run out and finally calls and puts his last $2 in as well.

I call. SB shows . River is

So, there are a few things in this hand....

This is the SB's 2nd hand in the game.. but I know him from before and he is loose/weak pf, but plays his hands pretty aggressively on the flop and thereafter most times. Although I haven't played heaps with him, this is they impression of him that I have.

1) min raise on the flop alerts me to the possibility he could have either 22, or 77, (maybe QQ but very distant). To me though, it seems reasonable that he sees my bet as a c-bet and would make this raise with any decent queen.. there is also the chance of him playing JJ-88 stubbournly.

2) His check on the turn to me. It looks to me that now the 3rd heart has landed that he wants to see the showdown for free, regardless of whether he has a set or a queen. It comes to me that I can represent the flush here. I don't consider him able to reraise me on the flop with the draw.

So here's my thinking, I bet half the pot.. showing him that if he played, he was playing for the rest of his stack.. plus it could look to him that I wanted a call or a raise. He really sweated on my having the flush.. it must have looked like I had it from my call on the flop. In the end though, I'm not going to lay it down to his last $2 when he pushed back.

It's so tricky playing the smaller/medium stacks because it's difficult to make them pay for their draws or in this case their possible 2nd best hands without leaving an escape route if it does turn out they're holding the goods. I know if we started on even stacks this hand would've played out differently.

Ok, so... should I have called on the flop? folded? raised?
should I have bet on the turn, or was the damage already done?

any thoughts on what I could or should have done differently?

I definitely know that I msiplayed this hand badly enough..but was just wondering where the crux of it was.... looks like the turn.

I think at the time he min raised I was considering his likelyhood of having the set is there but it's still not the prominant hand I put him on. I see this play often with hands as low as QT..just to find out where the raiser is at.. apparently though I'm an optimistic thinker.

(not two days before I was check raised with top pair[Queen] King kicker by a guy with an underpair [nines].. when I eventually folded he showed and said, "I knew you didn't have anything".. to which I replied nh and made a note on him. At these stakes where a single hand can't really effect you at all financially you see this a lot and it's just how much you know your man as to how you play your hand. I really didn't put it past this 77 guy to be doing a similar thing.)

There are lots of players in this game that I would instafold on the flop to, but this guy wasn't one of them..he has an air about him that he doens't know what he's doing. I'd seen him misplay hands before, but that wasn't this particular game.. he really got the better of me this time.

"your turn bets folds the hands you want to call, and doesn't fold the hands you want to fold." this is the most important concept I think...cheers for that.