We can never say for sure what Villan had/has, because NLHE Poker is a game of incomplete information.
To begin with, we need sample of hands played and a HUD Tracker.
If the poker room doesn't allow HUD, or it is a live game, we must trust on our instincts and take as much notes as possible (have you ever saw Phil Ivey playing live poker with a notebook and a pen in his lap?).
The Preflop
The table is short and our range is a little bit wider, so we are opening combos such as KT, KJ, KQ almost 100% of time. Considering this is modern poker, we should try to avoid min-raise (2 blinds, 2x), preflop, because we make the odds for players in position ridiculously good.
Now, your question: what Villan could have called with? Put yourself on Villain shoes for a moment and imagine that you are sitting in the CO and there is only the player in the BTN after you to act. The blinds are not our concern, because even if they Squeeze, we can think about entering a 3-way pot, having excellent odds for calling, plus position over anyone.
Now, if we are sitting in the CO now, we can call pretty wide and happily, at any stakes from 2 NLHE to 200 NLHE, with a buch of suited connectos, such as 76s, 87s, 98s, T9s, all the suited and some off-suited broadways and pocket pairs that we think that are not good enough to 3-bet versus UTG's opening ranges.
We can also be calling in this situation with very strong holdings, such as AQ, AJ, AT, 22-99, or 22-TT, 22-JJ, in the proportional ratio, of course, so when we think about what Villain could have, we must first apply the preflop logic, then we think about postflop gambling.
The postflop
The Flop
The problem of giving such excellent odds for a recreational player (CO/Villain) is that they can call with a bunch of crap and be ahead of us in unimaginable scenarios, for instance a fish could have called you with Q3s, because it loves to chases any flush, and almost certainly hands like Q9, but we are blocking those.
When we elect to c-bet 1/2 pot OOP and CO calls, we must first try to assume that it doesn't have any Qx on its range, because we are blocking from UTG with our cannon full of heavy queens AQ, KQ, QJ, QQ, etc.
So, we must assume that Villain could have called/float on the flop with 3rd pair (3x) or second pair (9x), plus all the Back Door Flushes and the SDs/Gutshots as well: we realize there is a ton of hands calling us OTF, for these reasons and others I would rather check the flop to see how Villain in position would react.
The Turn
This is a very tricky turn because it opens for our range a SD, we are blocking the second nut flush draw, we own TP2K, so our equity is pretty good at this point, and our hands should be c-betting this turn, but with a more reasonable sizing, because it doesn't has relation to ours 1/2 pot c-bet, now we are reducing the sizing, instead of increasing, ever since our equity got better and we own plenty of nutted hands on this scenario such as made straights, two pair, sets and nut flush draws: we are in a pretty good shape.
Considering recreational in position, it can now display a very similar range to ours, but a little more capped to hands like 33, Q9, QT, T9, etc, and should not be raising us right is with this specific part of their ranges, however Villain also commits a little bit of a blunder, let's consider:
Hero/UTG c-bets turn for 1/3 pot, and Villain/CO raises for 1/2 pot, this is a very paramount information: the pot was already $ 1.44 and CO/Villain raises only for $ 0.70? What a good pricing?
And I keep wondering when and how recreational players learned to bluff, or better saying floating OTF to raise OTT with a buch of draws, yes it is possible, but not much likeable, since we are blocking part of Villain's bluffing range.
With this pricing we cannot be folding still OTT but if the guy insists on some types of rivers we are forced to go away and muck our KQ for good.
By c-betting too much out of position, with a great part of our range, we start to enter into the "leveling wars", which means, we don't know anymore what Villain really has, and sometimes Villain has a hand like QJ and goes all-in OTR. Why? Because we allow it to make the pot grow out of proportion with a player which has non-sense at all about sizing, position, anything, so how do we intend to be profitable if we try to bluff passive players when they can never be bluffed?
Another option was to push right OTT when Villain raises, because our hands need protection such as 99, TT, QQ, AQ, KQ, plus we are drawing to the straight and blocking the flush.
Pot control is a very, very useful tool to use and abuse versus very passive players, because they expect too much that we are bluffing and sometimes we aren't, but they think we are bluffing and then they go all, letting us wondering what is going on, and this is a horrible feeling.
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa