Villain is a pretty straightforward middle aged white male drinking beers. He is capable of making moves post and pre flop every once in a while but usually gives up after getting called on the flop and turn if he has air.

History: Hero doubled up through him earlier in the session when hero opened to $10 pre with 55 and villain min-raised to $20 and cbet $15 on the flop of Q64r after hero called pre. Hero decided to call the flop and steal on the turn (probably a bad play since hero is only 100bb deep) but ended up binking a 5 on the turn and pot the turn and river and the villain paid off with his over pair.

On this hand, Villain is on the button with $580 stack, small blind (irrelevant) has $40 and hero is in the big blind with AQ and a $600 stack.

Everybody folded to the button and Villain limped, small blind called, Hero raised to $12, Villain called, small blind re-raised all in for $40 total, Hero re-raised to $112 total to isolate and Villain (to Hero's surprise) re-raised to $212 total. Hero?

I'm folding.

a pretty straightforward middle aged player limped the button when it was folded to him, then he decided to limp/5bet after you showed strength?

I don't know why you would want to isolate really anyway, I would have probably taken the flop.

Limp reraise sets off alarm bells until I have a super strong read otherwise.

I'm happily folding aqo but with aqs I don't mind a call to try to nutmine trips, flushes (fds), gutter and backdoor type hands that make the nuts, and the occasional tp of aces that will crack kk (but proceeding cautiously with 1 pair)

The preflop 4bet is total spew without stellar reads they lrr wide and often

Quite frankly find it hard to believe him. His line is very weird.

He could be doing this because he thinks you are weak and trying to isolate, thus he's attempting to fold you out and isolate himself. He wouldn't be wrong, but we don't need to confirm that for him. This is the more likely scenario if he thinks you're bad based on the 55 hand.

He could be quite strong with QQ+ but I'm not sure he'd call twice and then all of a sudden raise. It looks too strong, especially since it's not even a min-raise. Of course, he may not be aware of how it looks

Calling is a no-no because then you're playing a big pot confused and OOP with an SPR of ~1 -- never good. Between shoving and folding, I'm shoving. He could just be stealing and you're really only extremely dead to AA.

Fwiw, how many beers deep is he? They could be loosening him up a bit making shoving even better.

V hadn't l/rr at that point. He had open limped button (which may be alarm belsl but not the kind you state), then flatted Hero's open. Hero's 4bet was to isolate the shorty in SB who l/rr, which is perfectly fine.

AP, fold.

Why would V limp on button with a premium hand, then just call Hero's (too small) raise from BB? I think V has a small/middle pp and I'd probably gamble and shove (with possible fold equity -- sad but true), but it is +200bb, so folding is fine. He could show up with AK (but so weird if he did).

FWIW, I would have called the $40 pre.

we're still flipping vs a PP, would you really want to shove just because you think he'll fold?

In a vacuum his range if very strong and I think we would need more info on him before deciding to look him up.

I'd probably fold, but I really can't imagine what he has -- and his opinion of Hero is ruined after the 55 hand. At least we should get to see his hand.

I do like to gamble sometimes, though (probably why PLO is my game of choice!).

Thanks guys! I leveled myself thinking he picked up on the fact that I am probably not strong after I tried to isolate the short stack. So I thought a shove would make him fold any pocket pair other than AA-KK. Also, he first limped and then called again when I raised the first time and that also made me think he does not have AA-KK in that spot..

Anyway, I ended up shoving and he said "really?, I have kings!" and called after a few minute in the tank. The shortie had AJ! I hit a queen on the flop and ace on the turn. If I go back, I probably flat the shortie's shove and play the rest of the hand more carefully.

This is a really gross spot once he 5!'s you.

Don't be results oriented here though. Do you really want to let V get perfect odds to call pre and play IP vs you deepstacked? No. Isolate the shortstack who's range of ATC you're crushing with AQs plus V's dead $12. Your mistake was your 3! sizing. Remember that V only put in $12 so far, so you can even min 3! and deny V proper odds to call pre while still getting more then enough fold equity. If V was the one who made it $40, then yeah a proper 3! is about 3x to get fold equity, since V only called your open you can just make it $70-80 here to ensure an isolation.

Since you did size up though and get 5!, it's very much a leveling war like you said. You played the 55 hand questionably and got lucky so V might perceive you as bad, and we also saw him min-raise an overpair which is pretty fishy. Not to mention he limped the button instead of letting you chop; what does that entail exactly? It's hard to know.

We're allowing him to play perfectly by re-isoing the short stack and picking up a free $80 here if he's going to 5! like 99 here, but he could also have AK that played it funky, and we just don't really know why he limped the button.

I can't honestly say what I would do, but I think I would lean towards a fold to reduce variance and until I get a better read on his preflop tendencies, especially in such a tricky spot.

Wow. He limps the button and then just calls a raise from the blinds with KK? Amazing.

(Gambling does pay off sometimes )

From the two hands you posted, villain sounds like a pretty competent guy.
Love his flop sizing in the 55 hand, and his line afterwards (x/c turn and river - seems like he knows you're capable of floating and is letting you bluff off, which was your intention btw)
Love that he is limping the button because of the short stack in the first place AND that he just called your bb open, consistent with his plan for the hand. If you're going for the btn limp with KK, why limp/rr your BB open directly to shut the SB out and probably fold you out as well?

Folding is too nitty. The iso raise is good, could have been smaller and still got the job done like others said.

Shoving is fine. Calling and checkraising all flops you hit and some you miss is fine too. Which one is better is very opponent dependent but it's probably close.

This should make it obvious why folding pre getting 3.64:1 is too nitty.
http://propokertools.com/simulations...2=KK&s=generic

i probably fold, hate being out of position w/ aq even if suited

We are going to be ahead on the flop less than 20% of the time. Even at 4-1 it's an easy fold.

When the Villain is behind it's going to be very obvious to them. When we're behind it may not be obvious to us -- if the Villain has KK+ as their range.

I'll bet if V wrote this from his side, people would be like: Why didn't you just raise pre? Why didn't you raise BB's initial raise? (If SB had a shoving hand, which he did, he was probably shoving if button raised.)