Villain is pretty aggressive, 3 bets pre a lot, barrels a lot. Obviously I'm probably behind when he shoves but I figure I need only 30% equity to call and I have at least 36%, more if my Ace is good. Thoughts?

IPoker, $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

BTN: $50 (100 bb)
SB: $34.41 (68.8 bb)
BB: $50 (100 bb)
UTG: $58.42 (116.8 bb)
MP: $74.69 (149.4 bb)
Hero (CO): $51.10 (102.2 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with J A
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.25, 2 folds, BB raises to $4.50, Hero calls $3.25

Flop: ($9.25) 8 2 9 (2 players)
BB bets $4.62, Hero raises to $15, BB raises to $45.50 and is all-in, Hero calls $30.50

This is fine as played. If he is aggressive you need to reraise more often here and this hand would definitely be in the range to do that. He won't shove on you that often and when he does you definitely are priced in.

If you call with the intent of trapping the villain, you will run into too many difficult decisions against an aggressive player. You also likely won't have him stack off to you when a heart hits.

OK cheers. I did think that but IDK, seemed slightly to weak to 4 bet for value and too strong to 4 bet bluff. Is that line of thinking wrong, and are you talking about an exploitative measure specifically against a very aggressive opponent?

Sorry my response was confusing. I meant after the flop raising his lead is appropriate.

4 betting pf with AJs would be a disaster against most players.

This seems contradictory. If this player is so aggressive, why will hearts slow him down? He will certainly stack off on hearts sometimes, just that it's more likely when he has a single heart or a weak holding turned into a bluff than if he has, say, QQ, no hearts.

Regardless, this board has an enormous potential calling range for Hero here - any 8, any 9, any straight draw, any hearts, any overpair are all potential calling hands. In this instance, Hero improves on 15 cards and gains a straight draw on 6 others. Raising is fine, but it narrows Hero's range significantly and IMO lets the villain play better than he otherwise might.

Pre is good, dont wanna 4bet here.
I like both lines on flop either calling or raising

I def like raising flop here, since he is barrelling alot, you risk missing all draws and getting pushed out later in the hand. Here you can take it down right now and possibly make him fold an AQ/AK, and if he shoves you have equity to call.

Calling flop might be slightly better because its less variance and he can still hand over his stack when u improve, esp given the history.

I think those are the pros and cons of each line. Either way u cant go wrong tho

How balanced is our flop raising range here? We raising anything that isn't a set for value?

I would think you're raising AA/KK without a heart at the very least. My problem with the raising range here is that you're almost never bet-folding and unless Villain just bets flops indiscriminately in 3 bet pots he's got something too. Obviously, this is a bad flop for AK.

Well this is why I posted the hand really, I'm unsure of the highest EV line. I ran it through cardrunners EV and raise flop was higher EV than call although I used villain's known hole cards (AA) and guessed the likelihood of certain actions on later streets, so not sure how accurate that is.

My plan with raising flop was that I would fold out villain's AJ-AK holdings and possibly even a weaker FD like KhQh. I give him all those hands in his 3 bet range and he barrels most (like 90%) flops.

If he calls flop I then planned to check back a non-heart turn and take the free equity to try to catch the river. If I miss river and it gets checked to me then fire anyway.

When he shoves, as I said, I know I'm behind but priced in to call so I'm fairly happy with that decision.

You're not always behind when he shoves. He could have KQh, KTh, 67h, etc. They're very unlikely holdings but you are well ahead of all of them (I guess 67h has 16 outs plus 1 killer out, so maybe way ahead isn't the right word). I think there's no way you are folding out KQh on this flop and if you are doing that, something's wrong.

I also think if you'd called that you should bet many turns when you miss because that A: protects you somewhat when you do hit this flop and B: you still have lots of equity. If this guy is a serial barreler a check probably means he doesn't have a whole lot and you can take it down, which is what you want. If he's betting AK on this flop and then check/calling it on the turn you have lots of other ways you can exploit him.

Is it? Why not get to showdown?