I'm playing at Woodbine 6am on a Saturday/Sunday, I've been at the table for several orbits, there is a decent loose aggressive player sitting with $1200 on my right. I haven't seen him do anything out of line, but I've seen him make what seem to be well timed bluffs and bet his draws. And he's sitting with $1200, so he's doing something right. He ends up losing $200 making a slightly looser call than he should have? I forget what the hand was. I have been playing nitty and the table is starting to pick that up.

I have shown down two hands, AK and AQ, my AQ got sucked out on around first orbit against KQ, QxxxK where I was check-min-raised on the river K and I called. In retrospect, I should have folded. My AK lost to, I forget what, but I had to rebuy. There was another hand later where I bet hard 3 streets, and my opponent folded river, which got me back to $320.

Anyway, to the actual hand. He is sitting on the BTN, I believe everyone folded to him. I'm getting ready to leave since the whole table has turned nitty. He makes it $12 preflop.

I look at my hand, I'm staring at JJ. I am out of position with $320 behind, so I make it $40.

He calls. Flop comes QT8, 2 clubs. Not my ideal flop. Pot is about $82 at this point.

It is my turn to act. I make it $50, about half the pot, but figure I should bet rather than check back to him and let his speculative hands get there for free. He might bet if I check, he might not.

He raises me to $125.

Me: ??

WP, now fold.

He could have a semi bluff, like AcKc, but you block most of his combo draws, and they'd often bet bigger for more FE. He's shown no concern in a 3-bet pot and has made a near min-raise. Sure looks like he's trying to play for stacks to me, and you lose to every made hand. I really don't think there are enough bluffs/semi-bluffs in his range for you to continue.

Thanks. Should I have 3-betted preflop? I am wondering if it was better to just call his raise, to keep the pot smaller relative to my stack, but on the other hand he has position and is capable of playing well.

The deeper you are, the more position matters, being OOP is actually a reason a 3bet snd you want to play for stacks with this hand unless the table is very nitty

Honestly this spot sucks because a lot of fishy somewhat aggro will raise stuff like 99 in this spot (to protect agaisnt AK), even ******ed sht like AT could show up here but unless you have a read he stacks off with any pair here you can't really continue.

So it wouldn't be right to come over the top with all in? Possible he had 99?

I don't think coming over the top would be the best play here. I'm probably calling and reevaluating the turn. There are so many turn cards that will help define his range. If it's a brick and he keeps firing you can probably get out of the way.

Well played, now fold.

You have shown a ton of strength thus far, and V still wants to play for stacks. The bottom of his range is combo draws. Gotta fold.

Check/call flop

You're not getting 3 streets of value anyway, board is pretty bad for the 3 bettors range so we'll be checking pretty often, we need to have hands that continue vs his bluffs when we check, folding our equity in the situation we get raised is a disaster, etc.