I am in HJ, running really bad, stuck about $600. I am sure I made a few mistakes, but mostly I am catching tons of hands pre-flop and nothing on the flop.
The table seems to be pretty good, not too tight pre-flop but very aggressive post. Flops are weird, lots of sets, flushes, etc, so post flop aggression is justified in most cases. Villain seems to be right in the middle of the bunch.
Anyway, in HJ I get AT, it folds to me and I raise. Villain on the BTN 3bets, SB and BB fold, I call.
Flop 348
I check, villain bets, I call (Q1: Call or 3bet?)
Turn 5
I check, villain bets, I call (Q2: Call or Fold?)
River A
I check, villain bets, I call (Q3: Call? 3 bet? Fold )

Are you sure you know what 3-betting means? In both cases here you mean "check-raise." That's the most worrisome thing about this thread; not the hand.

I usually c/r the flop and barrel (because that's what I do with big made hands too, and I need some draws in there). But with a losing image people may tend to look you up lighter, so in this particular case I don't hate playing it passively OOP.

Sorry, too much poker, tired... you are correct

I tend to donk these rivers as he has a lot of pairs that check behind and is unlikely to raise you with naked ace.

Why would you ever consider folding the turn?

i just saw a deathdonkey video where he was teaching OTR and a very similar hand came up. it was HU in a 3bet pot and the flop was 8-high (that hand was a little different in that we were IP against a SB instead of OOP against a BTN.. and the flop was rainbow). deathdonkey said on a flop like that, he's continuing about 100% of his range and so, he likes to delay action til the turn in order to protect his lighter portion of his peeling range. not sure if this principle applies here or not, but i thought of it since i just watched the vid.

another thing i thought of... in that hand, we had 9 high and so the idea was to put in a c/r at some point and then barrel, hoping to get K-high/Q-high to fold by the river. in this hand, we aren't really hoping to get worse to fold, are we? maybe AJ/AQ/AK?? but are they really folding the river if we c/r turn, barrel river? or are we getting looked up by K-high?

although on this hand, we have a lot more equity with the 12 outs vs. 4, so a semibluff doesn't really cost very much.

I play the hand the same. Folding the turn is atrocious. On the river, we're not in great shape against his Ax, but we may induce a 3rd barrel from his Khi & Qhi hands, etc with a check. The obvious downside is villain will probably check back most PPs.

Semi-bluffing with this hand doesn't make any sense. Villain is very rarely folding better and may actually call down with a few worse hands occasionally.

winner

I don't like flop kr because no better hand is folding and it is not really for value, too.

Because the flop is 8hi, the x/r flop and barrel is a lot less likely to work. The only better hands we can fold out are AJ/AQ/AK, and it'll cost a lot of ammo to do it. And they still might not fold these hands. The plan works better without an A in our hand, or with a hi card or two, where we put pressure on smaller PPs, mid pair, and bigger Aces.

I think we have a better chance at x/r turn, barrel, but it would still be tough to pull off.

PJ is advocating the c/r for balance...

You'll have plenty of club draws to c/r with, and you need some FDs in your calling range, choosing one like this that might be able to win UI at showdown seems like a good candidate.

I think you have to donk the river since your range is mostly A highs that are calling down. It may even be so weighted towards A highs that you should just donk the A river with your entire range.

This.

I don't think so. The reason why I don't like flop kr is explained in PV's post.