Game is 2-5 400-1k buyin.

Vilain (covers, bought-in for 1k) is a 30ish white guy arrived 1 orbit ago, seems active, 3bet twice (once out of his straddle to steal dead money), didnt saw his hand once, no other info on him since new to 2-5, but he might be a reg, I'm a 1-2 player so he might think I'm scared money and try to make moves on me, but that's just assumptions...

Hero (690): 24 white guy, not very talking at the table since i'm trying to play my A-game and really concentrate when I'm taking shot at 2-5, before including table talk.

Hand:
Folds to Hero in MP raises to 20 with AK, V 3bets to 75, Hero 4 bets to 180, V calls

Flop (367): Q72
Hero ? (510 behind)

Good spot to x/shove, or just cbet? How much ?

I am piling this with the nutflushdraw, to try and leverage all the fold equity we can here.

Or you could just bet $250-300,if you think villain perceives that as stronger than shoving.

Like we are never folding of course with our equity and this low of a SPR, but we should aim for the most amount of fold equity we can get here. If we could get villain to fold his equity and not depending on hitting our outs, that would be a huge win for us and printing money. If we can get villain to fold hands like 1010 or JJ with a heart here for example and let go of his share of equity that would be a great result.

Higher pre, maybe $255. This would have setup a flop shove with <PSB if called.

Have to continue with this flop and equity. $260/call, leveraging FE on JJ/AK.

Disclaimer: When I first moved up to $2/$5 NL, played AK more passively.

I don't hate c/r AI, but I almost want to put some histrionics behind our check, Nothing over the top, but maybe like a 10 second pause, recheck your cards, and refuse to make eye contact with him.

Safer play is just to push AI though without checking 1st. If you get looked up by KQ, or JJ-99 we are in great shape and if he somehow flopped gin with QQ we still have outs. He easily could have AQ as well but we're like 42%(+/-) against that.

Previous posts of raising larger pre are correct. If you went to $225 instead of $180, OTF the pot is now $450 and you have roughly that much behind which makes shoving less of an overbet and the more sound play.

Your 4bet is too small.

Not much else to do but stuff it in there.

4 bet bigger if you are going to 4 bet; i would lead here with so much equity; you do not want him to check back and brick the turn so by leading you remove the possibility of this scenario every happening; if he plays back at you? good you have 2 overs and a nut draw lets get the chips in

You have to bet here. Goal is to maximize fold equity, since you're never folding this hand but don't really want calls. check/shove is not a good option because any reasonably sized bet commits V to the pot. If he throws in a 1/2 pot bet of $180, you'd be shoving 330 into 720 and he's never folding. So I either bet/call for $250 or just shove myself, depending on which you think has more FE.

stuff the turkey in the oven

/

I understand to 4bet bigger so it's more like a PSB shove on most flop. AP, just overbet was best think to maximise my FE. Thanks guys!

Hand played out pretty weirdly tho:

Folds to Hero in MP raises to 20 with AK, V 3bets to 75, Hero 4 bets to 180, V calls

Flop (367): Q72
Hero bets 33% (120) to induce a shove as I wanted to look scared (AA or KK without a ) and he looks like he wanted to playback at me, V raises to 250, Hero shoves, V folds for 260 more...

I guess I was repping AA, KK with a h.

Risky play but you read the Villain correctly, nice hand.

Nice read and good execution. Agree the 4bet is too small. There's plenty flops you won't like and making it bigger lessens your positional disadvantage postflop, which is always good, but especially great against very good opponents as shallower stacks leads to less skill advantage.

While your read was nice and your plan was good, I agree that we mostly want to shove flop here. The last thing we want is for him to bluff and commit himself with a one pair hand that would fold flop to a shove.

I don't know why you would want to induce a shove when you have ace high. I would rather wanna maximize FE and bet bigger/jam otherwise you would need to hit your flush to win.