So here is my main concern. Your defensive of your play and seeking validation for how you played the hand from pf to your flop play. So why even ask for anyones reasoning when your not gonna care...

"I don't care if everyone says I played it bad. Someone tell me I played it brilliantly so I can justify in my mind a stupid play that worked out."

That's what you said right? Ya I think that's what you said.

I totally agree here and this was the hand that was the turning point for my raises to be between $24 and $30. However the goal of the $18 raise was stated, obviously it back fired and the dealer helped me out with the flop.

Tell me why I need you or anyone to validate my PF play? I adjust at every tAble I play and I found the best strategy here was to isolate the droolers and crush them. Tell me why I should care if you think raising here is bad? I posted that I've gone to show down once, do you really think it matters much what hand I play? You should be able to crush droolers like this with ATC and if you can't do it with AXs Otb then please don't post in a topic where OP states he's looking for optimal play OTF. Instead, why don't you post in a topic where someone is asking what his PF raising range should be.

You can't separate a bad play preflop from a tough spot post flop. Most likely you got there because of the preflop play. Note that I did comment on the post flop play as well. All I'm saying is you're showing some real limitations by your inability to take criticism. I don't care what part of the hand you're asking about. If I think the main problem is preflop, that's what i'm going to comment on because that's where you can clean it up. If you suck preflop , you don't get better by learning how to handle tough post flop spots. You improve by cleaning up your preflop play. I'm not saying you necessarily suck preflop, I'm saying that you need to get over yourself and really listen and evaluate the feedback you receive, especially when you ask for it. Nobody likes to be told they played it bad. Once you learn to give as much weight to the bad reviews as the good, you'll get better. Trust me, I've been there. I inherently think I'm right when I'm clearly not. It's something to think about instead of trying to rationalize and dismiss things you don't like.

People mention the PF play if they wouldn't have done it. They mention it because they see problems with it. OK... just because you would never have found yourself in this flop situation, does that stop you from thinking about how to approach it? If you are playing an opponent who makes PF sizing errors, you are capable of thinking about what his flop play means, even though you'd never arrive at that flop situation like that. If you see his hand at showdown you are able to decide how well he played the different streets. You don't think "oh, he made a mistake PF so its not worth considering how good/bad his post play was". So too should we all be capable of discussing from one particular street of a hand and onward, in context, and treat what happened previously as the unchangeable past.

In every other area of discussion, it is never a problem to accept a given situation without question, and discuss the possible actions and results of the next step given the known information. Here in poker we argue with the premise instead so as to treat the situation like a problem or the result of a mistake that needs to be avoided rather than pondered over.

I don't agree with the OP's response to receiving more help than he asked for, but I have seen with my own eyes that the progress of a discussion completely stops when a single point becomes constantly mentioned. If you think there was a mistake made in the hand, it should be possible to mention that without it taking over the discussion, shouldn't it?

Edit: I'm willing to consider other viewpoints, I just don't see why working with a toy situation from a given point forward is unpopular

This isn't even a tough spot, it's just a spot where 3-4 different options seem ok. A $30 bet inducing a c/r seems ok. A $60 value bet seems ok. A pot sized bet seems ok and a shove seems ok. Am I wrong. I do appreciate the criticism. IMO ppl took the A3s raise at face value. I raise this hand a small % of the time and play it an even smaller %. I agree with all of that. This table was a lot different than "most of the time"

I still don't care as much about the PF play as the flop play. IMO the hand was played horribly by shoving the flop. We are pricing out a lot of hands that are WAY behind us and also not letting them spaz bluff raise us with air/smaller draws.

Betting > shoving > checking

I think shoving my be just a bit better than checking, but betting is the best line here OTF and I don't think its close.

Did we get to see a turn card?

Yea I had someone reshove with J6cc and I took it down. I've never done anything like this before and with table dynamics thought I might get something strange to call me. Next time I'm in this situation I will trys something different.

*Grunch

I would check back and play the flop passively with your image. Every single player could be waiting for you to hang yourself.

And a straight, and 2 pair.

So many people saying we should bet/shove but why?
We are on a draw, I am never betting if it's checked around, because I get a free card. You do realise we can miss the draw right?

Take a free card, hit the turn and go for 2 streets of valuetown.

Straight forward poker is what gets the money night in and night out at low stakes.

and if u dont hit?

So you would raise QJs>A3cc, I would like to hit what your smoking on.