It's not clear to me by the OP whether villain is passive post-flop, or just gives up a lot because he has a trash range to start with. If villain is passive, we should c-bet very frequently here. The main benefit of checking this hand back is to catch bluffs on future streets. If that is not going to happen, then we should just value bet all of our good hands and air on the flop, including this, and check back hands with showdown value which we don't want to put any more money into the pot with and hope to realize our equity. If villain is passive, then we need to bet now to deny whatever small equity his air has and get value from worse hands, of which there are many.

If we checked back flop because villain is aggressive and we expect to be able to catch bluffs, this hand falls very clearly into our call/call range.

Checking flop is only "standard" against decently aggressive opponents who will bluff future streets.

I used to think I had a leak of betting too many hands on the flop, leaving my checking range extremely weak and not allowing myself any bluff-catchers for turn and river. However, having a high c-bet is actually a very effective exploit against villains who call too many hands pre-flop and don't bluff enough on future streets post-flop.

We just put the hand up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L12mpcapb3A

I don’t know how I missed that.

But yes, I usually check here on flop almost always. Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s the correct play or not though.

I don’t really think betting is that bad if you’re afraid to be put in this exact spot by capable opponents. I think Bart advocated a flop bet too in his video. He said “ you can check back in a normal situation but here, if you expect a guy to play straightforward, you can go ahead and bet 40% pot to get called by QJ or something.”

Based on the description the caller gave in the video and also in the OP of "LAG that never folds to 3 bets" what I draw from this is that he opens far too wide and defends basically 100% of his opening range. So I think a check back here with AJ on almost and ace high board would be criminal, especially if villain is opening a lot of Ax.

Here, if the LAG has all his broadways, the flop is the street of value to get from KQ-QJ. Also, it was stated that the villain plays relatively straightforward post flop. TBH, if V1 calls the flop, I would bet again on turn, and if he didnt raise off there, this would be a 3 street hand for me given the description.

Okay.. so you bet flop, he folds.. happy life

But what about when you bet flop, he calls.. turn goes x/x, he bombs river? You’re in the same spot with no clue whether he whiffed a SD, betting worse Ax for value or has Tx.

I don't check the turn. I have position so bet again when checked too and evaluate if he checkraises the turn and I didn't improve. Most of the time at these stakes, this is a freeroll bet because there are so few V's that will CR bluff an Ace high board in a 3! pot that I can safely fold and be almost certain I am beat.

Pot control at levels below $10/$20 is incredibly over-rated. Our games are about extracting max value with exploitable lines because there are just arent enough good V's who will exploit us in this spot, especially when we EASILY can have AA here. It just isnt gonna happen.

You betting turn or checking turn/calling river equates to the same amount of chips lost though.

It does not. I get to set the price for the turn as a freeroll (I will fold close to 100% of the time if checkraised). If we check, V can shove the river with confidence (similar to what happened here) and we are put in the awful spot.

So what we’re doing is kind of blockbetting a previous street to avoid looking weak and getting bluffed later.

You have to be careful with these types of tells. I see it more commonly than one would think, where a player legitimately calls for what they need as a reverse tell, then when it comes and they bet big they level people into paying them off (I've paid them off several times). It's a bit different here though as I usually witness someone calling for a "diamond" OTR when they legitimately need a diamond to make their flush. Without knowing the specific V, I try not to let verbal declarations like this effect my decision one way or the other.

For the hand, it comes down to whether the V is able to hand read and use that information to run a big bluff. Hero's hand looks more like JJ-KK than it does AJ, so a thinking V could attack that OTR to fold out those hands. It may be a leak in my game, but I don't like paying off overbet river shoves in spots where I'm purely guessing where I'm at in the hand. If H's goal was to induce with a flop check then I guess you follow through and call it off hoping your plan works, but I would have bet flop to begin with and sigh-fold river as played.

It is a hybrid actually. V could still have club draws as well so we are getting value from those as well as continuing to define V's range so that we can play the river effectively. If he flats the turn and a safe card comes on the river, say what came (5) and then he checks we evaluate. Same if he leads.

We basically should continue to bet a board like this in a 3! pot HU and IP if/until someone or the board gives us a reason to stop.