+1000

Unless you are playing with brain-dead droolers, most players are not calling a raise from a tight player UTG with a range that wide. However, even if they are, AJo is not FAAAAR ahead.

AJo is behind all pairs.
AJo is getting smoked by AQ/AK/AA
AJo is approx. a 60% favorite against hands like KT and 65s
AJo is a huge favorite only against a weaker ace.

In addition, AJo in this hand is UTG and OOP in a hand with there will still be another 3 streets of betting. Consequently, talking about being ahead of another player's range preflop when OOP with an ROI hand is just silly.

But most pairs aren't sticking around after the flop. Your all-in equity isn't that important because you're not gonna be all-in pre. What is important is: how often you're taking the pot down when you miss, and then what your equity is against a calling range when you flop a piece of the board.

Also: the average LLSNL villain is honestly pretty stupid, which is why clearing the field requires such a gigantic raise in most games, and why therefore a solid grinder can attain winrates that would be unimaginable online. At very minimum I expect people to show up with AT, A9/A8s, KJ, and QJs for hands that I dominate.

I'd just fold pre, calling 3/bets with marginals OOP is not going to be profitable in the long run+ it would lead to bigger mistakes post flop.

dIt's either a fold pre or you open to $15. I personally never really open for less than $12 UTG. I prefer to not play the hand OOP against more than 1 opponent. Then I'd bet 3/4th pot on flop, and potentially check/evaluate turn for some pot control. I've never understood the point of raising $6 when 90%+ of hands people will limp along with for $2 they will also do for $6. Sort of like burning money. Either take firm initiative of the hand and raise $15 or fold pre.

Also, I almost never call 3bets with AJo, even min-raises. You're basically hoping to flop a straight or trip jacks -- everything else you're uncomfortable with (A-high flops, J-high flops, even AKJ flops).

You seem to be making a number of unrealistically hopeful assumptions, such as your opponents will play fit-or-fold with pairs when you miss the flop, but will blinding call you down with worse aces or jacks when you when hit.

In addition, you're not addressing how often that you will flop an ace or jack and your opponent, playing in position, is going to take you to value-town with a better hand.

Finally, solid grinders in LLSNL are not making their profits with plays like raising from UTG with AJo, which most posters would agree is probably close to EV neutral.

These dual outcomes are only available to the super, awesome poker studs among us.

I would open AJos UTG pretty much always at these games. However, calling the 3bet PF makes me cringe. I don't like the hand at all honestly. The raise OTF screams strength.. I'm dumping the hand on all streets. Our hand is not THAT strong.

They don't seem very unrealistic ime. The hitch is that most of the time when you hit, if you're up vs a fit/fold villain, they will miss and just fold. So if you're getting folds 70% of the time when you miss, then that means you are only getting paid on your pairs 30% of the time.

Obviously this will depend on what type of villain you are up against, and the general field, but my experience is that most people up to 1/3 will play circa 20% of hands and never fold top pair or better.

If we're at a table where opening AJo is profitable, then that will happen slightly under half the time. For a value bet to be +EV, your villain's continuing range has to have 50% exactly or greater.

The kind of players that crush, the players that move up and solidly pound stakes higher than 2/5, take +EV lines anywhere and everywhere they can find them. I won't say that opening AJo utg is always profitable, but it's ridiculous to say that it's never profitable, and if you're a crusher, and opening AJo utg is profitable in your game, you open AJo utg, and that's that.

Fold pre.