[jjshabado]

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If the villain is straightforward, I think betting is good. I have a hard time leading here if the villain is tricky or aggressive at all. It's such a good bluffing board. I routinely raise this board from the button. The hero's range is really weighted towards big cards that missed and you can threaten to play for stacks with top pair and the smaller overpair hands. It's so hard to continue with a hand like TT in this spot once raised.

In this hand we have a tricky villain with position who shows up with hands when the pot gets big. Ugh. This isn't the kind of hand we want to build a pot with, I think.

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Yeah its a [censored] spot, but I don't think there's any good way around the fact that villain has position on us. Checking the flop just looks weak to me, inducing villain to bet. I'm not a big fan of check/calling then betting out the turn because I think you're going to lose more to villain's big hands then you gain from his bluffs. You're putting in two good size bets this way while bet/folding the flop you're just putting in one. If villain only occasionally makes a move here I like the bet/fold on the flop better.

The other problem with check/calling the flop is that you aren't protecting your hand at all, and there's lots of turn cards that can come that will probably make leading the turn a bad idea.