Getting a good price or just a fish?

[LovesADraw]

Playing in the early stages of a 'good standard' pub league tournament.
Blinds 100/200 starting stack 8k.
I play with all of these players at least once a week so feel I have a pretty good read on their play in most situations.

Folded round to me in the CO with J10o and I flat due to aggressive players behind. Button makes it 800 blinds file and I call.

Flop comes Q83 rainbow. I check to the raiser and he makes it 800 again. I feel like early stages this is cheap enough to look for my gutshot so call.

Turn is a 10. I check he makes it 800 again I call now with the same gutshot and second pair.

River is a J for my two pair. I think this has show down value but not happy about going to war so I check and call his 800 (again) bet. He had top pair and I win the pot.

Did I go fishing? Did his small bets value me in on later streets? Should I have been more agro on the river fir value?

Your thoughts?
Thanks people

[BALOTELLI9O]

Yes you played the hand very fishy. First off if the players left to act are that aggressive consider folding for 40bb if you think the hand is only going to get you into trouble, but limp calling is the worst thing you can do. 1) There are going to be so many flops you will have to fold as you are not the aggressor pre flop. 2) You have gained no info at all on peoples hand strength. They know you are weak but you have no idea how strong they are.

Flop again i don't like. You have already put in 10% of your stack pre flop now your putting in another 10% out of position on a gunshot draw, with no idea if you J or T is good if you hit. You got lucky with the board run out but you played the hand very weak and passive and until the river 30% of your stack went into the pot with the worst hand.

[Rexas]

Pre

I don't like limping this hand in this situation. We are in a late position, so we do have a chance to win the blinds if we raise, which is always a good thing. We also have the betting lead, so we are able to c-bet a bunch of flops and not just win the pot if we hit, make the best hand, and make it to showdown. Again, this is very important and is actually less of a risk to our stack because we have the initiative, an "uncapped range" (meaning we can have everything from a bluff right up to AA and everything between that we want to play, and haven't shown ourselves to have weak hands) both of which make it harder for our opponent to bluff us and easier for us to win the pot, and control the size of it. If the button folds to this raise, then we're in position too, which is always great! If we are that worried about being raised, then we can just fold, but as said limp calling is definitely the worst option, because it does make it very hard for us to win the pot. I also want to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with raising this hand and folding if someone re-raises. We become very easy to play against if we only ever raise with hands that we are happy getting 3bet with!

Flop

If we have the betting lead, this is a great board to c-bet. We make it hard for him to call without a queen, and if he does call without a queen, we can put a lot of pressure on his weaker pairs down the streets. If we get a little unlucky and he does have a queen or better, we still have outs to the nuts, which again is always good! As played, I probably fold the flop. By check calling, we make it very difficult for us to win the hand if we don't improve, and even if we do, we only have four outs (which is roughly 16%) to make a hand that we are really happy with. We also have very little in the way of implied odds. Because we're out of position, we make it a lot harder to get value from our hand if we do hit, and we certainly make it very hard to get stacks in unless it's a cooler.

Turn

If we've got to the turn like this, I definitely don't fold now, although it is worth pointing out that some of our outs (like the J) are going to be pretty dirty and put us in a tough spot. Again, if we bet the flop, this is a really really good card for us to bet again and put maximum pressure on your opponent.

River

We improve to two pair, and given how this is played I probably do check call. I might lead, I might even check raise some people, but all in all I think check calling is fine. I do however think this is a good example of why having the betting lead is important and how, as a result of being very passive, we've put ourselves in a tough spot. This is a lot of what poker is about, avoiding putting ourselves in these tough situations and instead making our opponents do they guesswork.

Hope this has been constructive and not too critical, would love to see you in the PHA more!

[LovesADraw]

Thanks for your thoughts guys, appreciate the detail.

Now that I think about it I don't really think about his bet size compared to the starting stacks.

Suffice to say he wasn't impressed that I'd sucked out on the river lol