A week ago I found myself in a spot that I found kind of odd/interesting. I think hands like this can come up rather often in live low stakes games.

V1: Fish with VPIP/PFR of roughly 80/5. Will donk bet after the flop to protect his pocket pair if he puts the raiser on AK. Otherwise seems pretty fit or fold. Starts with 70bb.

V2: Frustrated aggro-fish. Playing about 60/20 for the session. Down to his last 8bb.

Hero: Won a few showdowns recently. Tight aggressive image. Covers.

On to the hand:

Hero opens for 3bb from CO with A 7. V1 calls from BTN. SB folds. V2 shoves 8bb from BB, then stands up from the table as if to say, "Send me home."

I ask the dealer to verify the bet size. I know that the action has reopened, but I doubt that V1 understands that action has reopened. V1 has already picked up red chips and seems content to see a flop.

As far as hero's preflop decision is concerned:
- Do you 4b with the actual hand (i.e. A7s)?
- What is your range to 4b in this situation?
- How do you size the 4b?
- If you 4b, describe your general plans postflop (i.e. which flops do you c-bet, which cause you to x/c, which cause you to x/f; assume main pot will contain 24bb, side pot has 48bb, and V1 has 38bb behind).
- If you flat the 3b and V1 flats (i.e. assume 24bb in main pot, dry side pot, 62bb behind effective), how aggressively will you play postflop? In other words, how differently would you play in this situation compared to a hand in which you have the betting lead heads up OOP against the same player?

It felt like the classic decision between further aggression and pot control. On one hand, I would prefer to simply race against V2's send me home range rather than race against both Vs' hands while playing postflop OOP against V1. On the other hand, I feel like V1 will tend to react to the 4b by folding his complete garbage and continuing with a range that does pretty well against my hand in a bloated pot. Also not sure how much I benefit postflop by 4betting in this situation; like I said, I don't think V1 noticed that action reopened, so he therefore is unlikely to realize that my range becomes weaker when I decide to flat the 3b instead of 4betting.

We have +EV against fish like V1 when our junk is better than their junk.

Even a fish can get A8+ in this spot.

Even so, he will still miss the flop a lot.

But the main pot still has V2 in it.

He can have A8+ just as well.

IMO better to flat and bet 2/3 pot post flop than bet into a dry side pot.

If we had position on V1 I'd be pretty happy to call and see a flop since he'll tell you exactly where you stand by donking.

However, with positions as they are, I think a 4-bet here to about 30BB would be best here since there's some dead money from V1's call, and his range is probably still about 75% of hands here, which we're probably ahead of even if called (the missing 5% is from the top of his range, which is great for us as well).

Regarding your questions in the OP:

-The A7s 4B is fine given positions, stack sizes and how wide V1's range is.

-My 4B range here is probably 22+, KJ+, A2s+, A8o+, given that there are all the hands I'm opening from the CO which I'm happy to get in against an ATC range of V2, and V1's range is so wide as to be almost negligible since most of it is folding to a 4B.

-Sizing to around 20BB with strong value hands to entice V1 to come along and feel committed on a lot of flops, probably going around 30BB+ with my light value hands/semi-bluffs to get the pot heads up.

-Probably shoving all flops if I miss after 4B, and betting small on flops where I hit, since V1 doesn't seem like the type to bet without at least a pair.

-If I call the 3B, I'm checking all flops, and betting all turns if the flop checks through since V1 would be betting his pairs on the flop if checked to. If we flop a pair I'm c/cing against V1, and evaluating a lot of turns, and c/ring flop if we flop 2P+.

Grunch...

This is the situation where I will be putting me most money in the pot with the weakest range (I like 4betting here). A lot of the time the short stacker will be shoving super wide, like any two cards above a 9, any Ax, any PP, and we really don't mind getting it in pre-flop with some dead money from the other players. If we 4bet and get called, well then I'm treading very lightly, because in that case we are usually looking at a range that looks like 99-QQ and like AKs or AQs etc...