[VespaRally]

Here's a long stab, FWIW.

With 11,000 you made it 350 to go with As-Ah at 50/100 blinds from under the gun. You got called by a middle position player and the small blind. The middle position player is someone who plays a lot of hands and will draw to long shots. He also has a big stack and is running well. He has you covered.

Preflop play: Standard. Although I might have raised a little bit more given this player’s tendency to call and my bad position.

Flop: 7s-9d-5s
Pot: 1150

After the small blind checks you lead out for 650 (a little over half the pot). You’re called by the loose middle position player and the small blind folds.

Flop play: I would have bet a lot more than 650 due to three reasons.

1) the board texture is very bad and you have to price the straight/flush draws out and

2) you have an opponent who is very loose and liable to call without getting the proper price.

3) if you bet more and your opponent calls it might define your hand a little better. After you give your loose opponent 2 ½ -to-1 with a weak little bet like that after you’ve raised UTG, he might assume you have AK (and the like) and be calling with a small pair or second pair. If you bet the pot and he calls you might be more concerned that he is trapping or at least drawing.

Turn: 7s-9d-5s-(6c)
Pot: 2450

You lead out for half the pot and your opponent now min-raises you to 2400.

Turn play: You have roughly 9000 left in your stack after you get raised on the turn. You are getting 5:1 to call when the board reads 7s-9d-5s-6c. You’ve been check-raised by someone who you’ve already seen draw to a gutterball and the board is rife with little 2-pair hands. If you call, you will have 7800 behind with a 7000 pot. I think in this juncture of the hand, you have to sit back and ask yourself what is his likely range and what will it really cost? You have to call 1200 right now but you might have to call a 2000-3000 bet on 5th. We’ll say it might cost you 3700 roughly to call down.
What can you win if you have the best hand and it holds up? Around 9700. So, you’re getting around 2.6-to-1 under these assumptions, if you have the best hand and he will bet around a third of the pot on the river. You have to win around 27% of the time or better to break-even in the long-run.
Next, you have to ask what does he have? One thing you didn’t mention about this player is how he played his hands? If they were strong did he make small raises to price people in or did he get aggressive right away? Has he shown a tendency to bluff? If you knew these answers your read would improve.
On the turn it is definitely a hard decision. If you fold the turn you have 9000 left which is still almost double the average. However, you’re getting 5:1 immediately, which if you believe he has two pair or might be bluffing, is too big a price to muck IMO. Especially if you think there is some chance he’ll check behind if you call the turn. My plan of action would be to call the turn and possibly check-fold the river, depending on how much he bets and whether I improve. His most likely hand is two-pair or the straight, but I think if he had the straight he might play it a little differently (either raise more to protect against the spades or smooth-call to trap you if you have a big pair).

River: 7s-9d-5s-6c-(Kd)
Pot: 7250

You check and he bets 3255.

You’re getting a little over 3-to-1 to call and you have one pair. You’ve been raised on the turn by a player you’ve categorized as loose so he is liable to have many hands here: 99, 77, 55, 66, or 97 or 75, or anything with an 8 in his hand like A8, K8, 87. I think the only hand here you legitimately beat given this action is A9 or K9 or overpairs like KK-TT or a busted flush draw that he tried to semi-bluff with on the turn thinking you were firing a second barrel with AK. I think the King on the river might scare him into checking if he did have A9 but I might be wrong. This is why telling us if he is aggressive or not would be very helpful in this spot.
If you call and lose you will have around 4300 giving you a little under an average stack. If you call and win you will have 17,000 in chips and have 4x an average stack.
If you think he is capable of bluffing on the turn and is now continuing his bluff you have an easy call, if you think he’s betting a hand for value that’s worse than yours (I think that’s very, very unlikely given the action) then you have to call. That’s a tough decision but my tendency would be to fold and then shoot myself with my Mossberg if he showed me Ts-7s or something like that.