I agree that just betting because you have Aces is what you shouldn't do, I think the is very level one thinking. Play the cards you have and do not worry about the board. That is just a recipe for going broke, Aces are great but they are still just one pair. I hate getting aces under the gun, always have bet sizing problems, too cheap you get 4 or 5 callers, too much you get the blinds. I also hate limping in and no one raises so now you are in a bad spot against the field. And when you do back raise the table knows your hand. Then when they flop a better hand they get a big pot off you.

I think its a reasonable discussion, and its just about exploiting a read right?
My read was he'll bet close to 100% if checked to, cause that's what I'd seen him do.
If my read was accurate (turned out not to be) then he's gonna bet all hands which would call a bet, and a whole bunch of hands which he'd fold if I bet.
So checking is better in the sense that he'll more frequently put in money as a dog.

However even in the case where he bets 100% when checked to, checking has a couple of poetential drawbacks:

-He gets to set the price (he might call PSB with top pair, but bet 0.5pot)
-We give up betting lead and either have to c/r flop, donk turn, or check turn and hope he continues.

So I think my approach will be to just bet bet bet unless I have a really good read that he will not only bet 100% when checked to, but is also agro enough to reliably barrel and/or be sticky to a small c/r etc.

This will of course lead to me bet bet betting a large majority of the time, and reserving trappy exploit checks for quite extreme situations.

You're kind of twisting what I said a bit don't ya think?

Okay, technically you are correct that we should check if checking is more profitable, but expecting 1/3 villains to BET random overcards more than CALL random overcards is, well, not reflective of the reality of these games as I've experienced them. Because of the large number of draws, small overpairs, and various broadway hands that might call once or twice I expect betting to be more profitable. And if checking is more immediately profitable it *still* creates problems for us in defining villains' ranges. If we bet this flop and don't get raised, we know with near certainty villains are capped at 2p usually worse.

Certainly once we bet the turn and don't get raised, we can define villain hand ranges much better than taking a line like x/c x/c and then be totally in the dark OTR.

We're playing vs. a range of hands including many flush draws, some of which might or might not fold, and what I said was "If we had [bet/bet/bet] we might be good on this river". K5ss happens to be one of the FDs that won't fold, but so what, we still build the pot with an equity advantage by betting flop or raising turn or betting flop and raising turn.

Yeah it sucks when we build a pot and x/f but this is the worst possible river card. It happens. We bet for two reasons: 1) to build the pot in case we win 2) to aggressively deny other hands from realizing their equity cheaply. Betting AA here OTF and OTT satisfies both reasons.

Did I say there was a FD on the flop? Rereading...hmm...nope, I did not. Fade 8 outs, great. Okay so why don't we build the pot while doing so? Again, AA is not strong enough to slowplay OTF, certainly not OTT.

I get the feeling those ITT who think checking twice with Aces (when plenty of worse hands can call) is maximizing our EV don't get how to maximize our EV.

I can assure you I am only looking for the most +EV line here. You misinterpret everything I say. Charging draws is not a "moral victory" but an economic victory. Draws have lower equity than we do. If we charge any hand with lower equity than we have to continue, and they continue, we make money off their calls.

Is anyone ITT actually arguing AA is always 100% bet/bet/bet??? Has ANYONE suggested just playing your cards without regard to the board?

But on 347s Qs not betting both the flop and turn is pretty criminal against loose opponents. In particular not betting the turn after the flop checks through is bad. And not raising the turn after we finally got a bet from PLO gamble man (which bet was the goal of checking I think) is really bad.

If your rambling, confused post is a level (which I kind of suspect due to all the fishy comments about Aces), congrats on getting one over on me I guess.

At levels 5/10 and below, my thoughts are this will generally be the highest EV strategy long term. Obviously there are situations that call for a different line, so in no way am I advocating that we just blindly do this. I just felt that in this specific case, unless you KNEW he was going to bet with any two if you checked, then betting the flop is always much better on this board for a lot of the reasons you state. The other good thing about betting is that the chances that we are going to be bluff raised are pretty slim overall at these levels so you can confidently fold most of the time when that happens (on the turn...flop would a bit dubious). There just aren't a lot of V's who are capable of running sophisticated bluffs, so your goal should be to get max value when you have a good made hand.