(I believe) AQo is great in a game like this... they can't fold post and will give action with a lot of hands. . . so anything that would normally be decent is super juicy. Schmendr1ck is spot on here.

Thank you all very much for this guys. Pre-flop raise should have been bigger or should have been none at all.

DrStrange, can you point me in the direction of any theory around the concept of "stickiness".

Thanks again all - most helpful

I'm not DrStrange, but I'll give you my thoughts.

Sticky players are basically calling stations. When a sticky player hits the flop, even weakly, he doesn't like to fold. Adjust your play accordingly - c-bet/bluff a lot less and valuebet a wider range harder (e.g. TPGK becomes a stronger value hand). When you do bluff, be prepared to double/triple barrel and be prepared to lose a big pot when he calls you down with bottom pair.

Sticky means a villain tend to stay in a hand longer facing larger bets when playing a weak made hand. (weak meaning relative to the coordination of the board - bottom full house could be weak eg pocket twos and a board of 2-A-A-Q-Q.)

Calling stations are sticky, but other types of villains can also be sticky. Sticky players don't bet-fold. They play their draws to the river and depending on the nature of the villain fold to the last bet or may try a bluff.

Sticky players are poor targets for a bluff. A bluffing Hero vs a sticky villain generally turns out bad for Hero. You can see lots of 2+2 threads where this happens and the poster wonders how the villain could have called off his stack with such a weak hand.

Sticky players reinforce each other. Soon enough it makes a wierd sort of sense to be playing 200BB+ pots with top pair / bad kicker vs middle pair / top kicker.

I find these sorts of games to be profitable using "less loose" ABC poker, a very limited range of bluffs and a liberal value betting range. No doubt there are other strategies that also are profitable.

DrStrange

I don't think a fold is that crazy. Folding AK would be crazy, and folding AQ in this spot probably isn't maximally exploitative against this particular opponent, but it's still a reasonable fold against an UTG raise.

EDIT: Stack sizes are important here, though. The shorter your stack, the more playable the hand becomes.