Villain is late 30's white guy, clearly plays a lot (from table chatter), not sure if he's winning long term, though. Straddles every UTG (I think he wanted to play 1/2 really). Haven't seen him do anything of interest really, has been limping a bit preflop, but the whole table has to some extent. He is fairly aggressive postflop and seems capable of bluffing.
He starts the hand with £225

Hero has very tight image by this point- only showed down tens full so far.
Hero covers Villain

Preflop:
Hero is BTN with A K

UTG folds
fold
Villian raises to £7 in MP
fold
fold
Hero raises to £25 (Villain says "no, no, that's too much" as I reach for chips)
blinds fold
Villain calls

Pot: £52

Flop
A 7 2

Villain checks
Hero bets £40
Villain raises to £100
Hero calls £60

Pot: £252

Turn
A 7 2 8
Villain moves all-in for remaining £100
Hero...?

Does anyone know what range I can be putting the villain on here?

Aggressive villain with an SPR of 4 and we have top top, I cant lay this down getting 3-1. Sucks we don't hold a heart but what are you gonna do?

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Grunch.

Uh, if you were going to fold I think the place to do it was OTF. But yeah, If I were going to call the flop I definitely wouldn't fold here. I would have probably just jammed the flop and expect to see AK-AT/hearts/77 most of the time. Do you think this p;ayer wpuld raise 77/22/A7/A2 in EP? From the description I would guess that he would probably limp those hands a lot. I probably shove the flop with only $100 behind.

Overall this should be a split the majority of the time. He will freeroll a decent chunk on the turn but we have to go with it as played. The rest if the time we look at 777.

(If he is the type to 4 bet AK pre, then we are smoked here)

And this decision was to be made after the flop CR.

Yeh- I'm interested to know what people think about the flop too. It seemed too exploitable to just fold to a raise and I'm not sure that much calls a shove that we're beating...

I don't think he's typically calling a 3bet with A7 or A2 cos he's super dominated by my range. He could quite possibly have 77 and maybe 22 here but would possibly fold the latter. Having said that the flop SPR is really not enough to warrant set mining IMO, especially OOP.

I agree that calling the flop makes us pretty pot committed so kind of have to call off the turn but like I said, I'm not sure we can fold a flop this good to a single raise.

Anyone else not like the flop sizing?

I'd much rather go something around ~30 - $35.
If this was a single raised pot, I think the bigger % bet sizing is good, but it just seems like there are a lot less weaker Aces in their range to get value from.
As well as less flush draws.

He is getting 11:1 IO and 2:1 DO on his call so he can certainly think that he's getting the right price to set mine. (And it's pretty close, imo, but should likely a fold OOP.)
And given your tight image he can very reasonably expect you to commit post flop so he is almost certain to get paid off.

I'd not really given this too much thought tbh- my standard sizing is ~80% pot in most spots, but with my preflop strength, you may have a point. It's certainly something to think about, so thanks.

I think it's definitely a mistake but it's not at all beyond the realms of possibility.

Do you reckon this is a fold, that being the case?

Seems like a good time to post the results:

I don't think the Villain often has 22 or AA, can have 77 but might not raise a flop that dry and wouldn't shove a heart turn. He also is unlikely to call the 3bet with hearts given the Ah is on board. Two pairs seem unlikely. So I called expecting to see overplayed AQ sometimes and random bluffs sometimes (probably with a heart) as well as 77 and the odd flush.

River is dealt an A
Villain turns over 72 for bottom two pair (and a bizarre value-bluff on the turn + ridiculous preflop call)

fold flop - you have a solid image and you 3bet pre - then bombed a flop that smashes your range. Then you got raised, even terrible players wont have worse a's enough to commit in this spot with 1 pair.
Turn is even more of a fold.

I agree on the flop fold but if we call the flop we call the shove and pray

If I though this player was a critical thinker, I couldn't agree with you more. However, there aren't that many better hands that make sense here (as I mentioned above) and he could easily see my image as being only able to GII with the nuts, so wants to bluff me off (possibly) AQ, (more likely) KK-TT, which I might 3bet here too. Not certain this reasoning is solid, hence why I posted this hand, but that was my reasoning at the time.

Do you think this plays out better if I bet smaller on the flop or even delay my Cbet to the turn?

There will often be times in low stakes live that it wont really make much sense that you could be beat. But trust me, when players take these types of lines - you almost always are!

More important than placing him on a range, is realizing player tendencies, and that its really more than optimistic that hes bluffing here.

This is the precisely the kind of hand and board which is why I check behind 100% of my range on Ace-high 3bet pots.

We are WA/WB here the vast majority of the time, because he should have very few if any flush draws in his range. Because our relative hand strength is unlikely to improve, we should be looking to keep the pot smaller and get 2 streets of value. You'd have to have a solid read that villain is stationy enough to c/c all 3 streets with AJ/AQ type hands in order to empty a clip here.

In addition, against aggro/tricky villains, the flop bet opens us up to this exact line, which he can easily do with AK. Thus, we have to risk a lot of chips to call him down for either a chop or to be crushed by his set.

As played to the turn, call.

that is more of an argument to not 3bet ak pre than not to c bet when you flop gin imo.

This seems like really great advice for me- exactly why I post here. I usually play online vs TAG-fish and at a live home game with guys who study the game - against these villains, making no sense = bluffing. I can completely see why this doesn't extend to the casino but hadn't given it that much thought before.

Let's assign a standard EP opening, 3bet calling range to the Villain - let's say, TT+ (and more PP lower than TT the deeper we are), AJs+, AQo+. I understand that some of this is villain dependent, but I think that's a safe medium.

When we bet this flop with AK, what happens when villains play straightforward? They fold all PP that hasn't set, they c/r when ahead, they probably c/c AQ or AJ once. But if we're going to bet flop and fire three barrels, they actually have to c/c all streets with AQ/AJ unimproved. I don't think that happens as often as it does to make up for the times when we get c/r, then we have to risk a ton to hope to chop with AK, but usually lose to a set.

Also, if we bet this flop with AK, then we essentially have to bet it with QQ/KK or we turn our hand face up in those spots. It's basically the very definition of WA/WB, which means we want to keep the pot small.

100% agree with all of this, my point is because of what you said - in this specific spot, it's hard to see the real value of 3betting ak. Isolation is a positive but all stated above will be true in this occasion