Struggling with passivity on flop against splashy villains (AJs)

You can't fold the flop when holding the A along with two backdoor draws. FWIW, I might have 4-bet rather than called preflop, especially given what appears to an exorbitant rake.

Indeed, did $20 get removed from the $83 pot on the flop for the rake?

*apologies my typo. £83 pot!

Why not 4bet this guy pre? Unless the 3bet is rare for him? In that case, the call is fine, but you should be a little cautious. I call/evaluate on the flop.

I think 4bet gives me very tricky SPR problems on the flop no, assuming a 3x sized 4b

I guess my question is two fold, are there parts of my range on the flop where I might take more aggressive action on the flop (sets/AK) is there an argument for sometimes representing this against a villain who is c-betting almost 100% of the time. Especially when V has left room for this with his c-bet sizing at 1/3rd…

Hard to rep AK when you don't 4bet pre. The only hand we beat that might fold to your raise is AQ. If you do raise, be prepared to continue aggression on the turn. Talk about SPR problems 😉

Does he have a fold button?

Sure I take your point and I understand. I’m just looking for different ways to realise equity, other than the hard way. I’ve been wondering, after what transpired if calling could sometimes be mixed with a big re-raise here…

my thought process is how do I apply pressure to this part of this guys range when he 3b’s **** like that to an utg raise…cba having to go to showdown too often…is there no post flop strategy is it all 4 betting pre (that might be my weakness here?)

It's a lot more difficult to have a post-flop strategy when you are OOP and not the final aggressor pre. If you raise (the flop) and he raises/shoves, you have to fold, which is kind of gross.

You 4-bet preflop...and since you're barely 125BB effective, your 4-bet OOP should just be a shove.

If you don't like having your 4-bet be a shove, you may want to rethink open-raising x7 when you're not very deep.

Now looked at spoiler and time for the results oriented part:

H got really lucky with runout and a 4-bet would have only folded out a dominated hand. If flop is J-high instead we stack him without having to go runner runner.

I missed that the hand was straddled. That makes calling preflop really horrible, especially if the plan is to fold this flop because of stack depth.

If Hero isn't willing to GII preflop with AJs at 50BB effective because a bullying LAG 3-bets him, then he really shouldn't be sitting in this game...or he needs to severely tighten his preflop raising range, especially when the hand is straddled.

But what range do you think V is calling a 4-bet shove with?

I'll bet KJo is in it....likely QJo, maybe JTs.

I doubt it, but if that’s the case, then yes shove away.

Preflop is just about OK. Despite the short stacks due to the straddle, it's a smallish open and a smallish 3bet. Probably letting hands like KQs go. I agree that things get very awkward if we 4bet and get called, unless you just jam.

I would call the flop. An Ace may be an out, even a Jack and you have a draw to the nuts. Check-raising represents only 77 or AK which only called preflop, so you're only getting AQ and some medium pairs to fold. LJ may well blast turn on a lot of cards; you will probably have plenty of options on turn and river.

EDIT: ah balls, I misread the flop thought there were two hearts and we had the nut flush draw...but can't be bothered to write again... basically I agree with fatmanonguitar

PRE - RFI'ing with AJs seems standard, but if we're getting 3B a lot, I'd think we'd want to tighten up on our opening ranges, so we can 4B-jam.

AJs is sort of cuspy as a 4B-jam candidate, and gets really dicey if the 3B comes from a different player, someone less aggro, who might just be tired of V's $hlt, or who's been waiting to pick up a big hand to make a comfortable squeeze. I'd be fine 4B-jamming JJ/AQs+ against this guy.

His 3B to 40 is less than 3x. Since we're OOP with a suited AX that could easily be dominated, and we're only starting out 50 straddles deep, I think we have to play this as a 4B-jam or fold. If we think V is getting OOL too often, I guess it's just a 4B-jam and hope for the best.

FLOP - We have an over, and two backdoor draws, and we block AA/AK. It sounds good, but it's going to be difficult to get past the turn, even if we pick up equity. Are we planning to stack off on the Qh or Th, or any ace, if he pots it?

His c-bet size is a tad large for a 3 bet pot. I get that we don't want to fold against this LAG, but calling pre and calling flop just to fold the turn on a brick seems like spew. Hard to rep AA/AK when we don't 4B pre, so a x/r would be repping 77, I guess?

I dunno. Our hand seems like it has a little too much equity to turn into a bluff, but not enough to want to play it like a bluff catcher. I probably just fold and curse myself for not 4B-jamming pre.

Just a thought - against this sort of V, I would have a limp-3B range that includes some AX combos. Not sure if we can or want to do that at only 50 straddles deep, but if we did, I could see putting AJs into a limp-3B range.

Since you're playing 50bb effective I'd either 4bet or fold preflop OOP. You might consider topping up to 100bb effective depending on how often there is a straddle.

This is a similar HH to another from yesterday where V is described as splashy. But question is whether "splashiness" correlates with a wider 3bet range. It's difficult to fully address without showdown info in a 3bet pot.

I mean, if you'd seen V 3bet 87s or QT or something then 4betting AJs at 50bb is likely +EV.

As played, I'd fold on the flop. K74 is generally not a flop to x-r bluff, especially this shallow.

Don't love the open size of 3x the straddle in a 1-2 game (where I expect more spew calls than anything else) ... don't like the call of a 3bet, feels like the old "don't want to fold and scared to raise so only one option left". Esp. so 50bb deep.
Yes, we stack him on J high flop and get to "bluff catch" on A high flops ... but do we even have a chance to win on most flops we both miss?
4bet size would be kind of annoying, but if anything I'd blame that on our open size again. Bigger open and we can just shrug and 4bet shove, ez game.

Flop is very w/e, if we were deep enough to have AKo in range pre. then I like calling a lot better. As it is we are probably going to have to get lucky to win, even if we are in front ... but we have backdoors and it's a small-ish bet.

V should be betting a lot bigger on the turn.

Worth pointing out that river is well played by H.