[ArmenH]

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Here are the dynamics:
There is a must move game that just broke and an asian father and son get moved to our table. I have never played with either one. Coincidentally, they are seated next to one another...Another player at the tables pulls me aside and says they always sit next to each other every time they play and he suspects them of cheating. Villain is the son and is sitting with close to 8k, my stack is roughly 7k. On to the hand..Villain open limps for 10 folded around to me and i raise 3c3s to 50 on button SB folds BB(father) folds villain calls. Flop comes 10d5c3d villain checks i fire 75 he thinks briefly announces raise and makes it 250. I call. Turn brings a 2s he insta fires 600 into the pot. I call. River 9c he goes all in...Villain??????? I played my hand like a draw, the diamonds didnt get there. I've completely underrepped the strength of my hand also. Anyway I took about 10 minutes before making my decision. I wanted to take as long as possible to see if i could get any physical tells. I asked villain multiple questions and he didnt respond to one while he sat there in a concrete pose not moving a muscle the whole time. Would villain possibly play a set of 10s or 5s this way? is a hand like 64s in his limping range? What does he put me on? Does he think my hand is strong enough to make a hero call on the river? Does he think my draw missed so hes shoving expecting me to muck? Is villain capable of making a bluff here? His father sits there staring at my chips while im taking my time to make my decision...What does everyone think? my river call would be close to 600bbs. Clear fold?

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I fold and here is why.

1) With stacks this deep, I don't see any way that you can rule out suited one-gappers. 4-6 is a very real possibility.

2) I see absolutely no point to your preflop raise with stacks this deep. I think that there is merit in limp fishing a broad range of starting hands when stacks are really deep, but whatever.

3) I don't know why you think your hand looks more like a draw than a set. I think it looks like 33 or 55. In any case, if I were the Villain, I would assume that TT is the nuts here, because your hand doesn't look anything like 4-6.

4) I think that this is a bigger set, 4-6 or air 95% of the time. I guess that Villain could have T9 here, but what a dumb way to play it, especially if you are first to act and you think that your opponent has a busted draw on the river.

5) As you pointed out, Villain's play makes no sense if he puts you squarely on a busted draw. If he puts you on busted draw or a set , however, his play has a lot of merit if he has 4-6 or TT. I guess he could put you on an overpair, which could change the equation.

6) Why do we think that Villain is bluffing here. He probably has no need to bluff (and certainly no need to bluff this large) if he thinks that you have a missed draw. If he thinks that you have 33 or 55, and he has air, would this look like a good spot for a bluff? Probably not. Even if you are capable of laying down 33 or 55 here, many people are not, which makes it a poor spot from which to bluff against an unknown.

This hand perfectly illustrates why the value of low pairs as starting hands looks like a bell curve (i.e. not worth much with 20BB stacks, peaking in value at 200BB stacks, and going back down when stacks are super deep). Put another way, it's tough to win 700BBs with 33 unless your opponent is truly retarded. This has to be even more true live (because reloading may be more difficult) than online.

One other thing -- I don't know exactly how the father and son typically "cheat" together, but one assumes that they juice pots for each other. FWIW, that's not happening here.

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I agree with your logic except for how you think small pp's lose value. I think large pp's lose value when stacks get deeper and small pp's value increase bc you have better implied odds to set mine vs a big stack.

I raised the button with my small pair because 1) I want to punish the UTG limp 2) Limping pp's late with only one limper imo is too weak especially if you can play post flop w/o flopping set. 3) I want to build a pot in case I do hit a perfect flop.

Thoughts?