ACR $33 tournament, near the money bubble. I have been top 5 in chips for nearly the entire tournament and should have a reputation as tight and generally having the goods. Not much read on opponent, but he doesn't seem terrible or overly aggressive.

I am in the BB, opponent is in SB. Both of us have around 40BBS. This SB has picked on my BB a couple times before, and I've folded each time.

SB opens to 3.1x. I have AJo and 3-bet to 8BB. He jams.

Is this ever a call?

I mean that's really why we are 3 betting this hand bvb - get him to jam a much worse range. If you're unsure of this, calling the raise is fine too - frankly calling might be the superior play depending on pop tendencies

If you're 3-betting it should be with the intent to call, assuming he's jamming worse aces and some Broadway hands you beat, and pairs you're flipping with. You gotta have a plan for this spot-- if you're not sure what you'd do if he jams, then don't reraise. If you think, say, 3-bet/fold is fine because he's only jamming AQ/AK and pairs, then it's probably more profitable to play postflop in position and keep his hands you dominate in.

While it's not as strictly true as we used to think that bets are either value bets or bluffs, it is true that this is a spot where we need to have an idea of our opponent's tendencies and ranges before making the 3-bet. It's such a close hand, you need to know if his 4-bet range is tight enough you can't stack off profitably or wide enough you can. I wouldn't be surprised with the money bubble (again, depending on how close to it you are) that you can't really stack off because even being marginally profitable by cEV is a potential disaster for you by $EV.

If we're near the bubble and the stacks are this deep, then I'd either flat the raise or just outright 3-bet jam (although I think the latter I'd only do if I covered him; which of you covers the other is important around the bubble). I don't really want to induce action with AJo in a bubble situation.

As played, unless I have reason to think SB is especially aggro in these spots, I probably puke and fold and wait until we're in the money to make any big moves or take close spots. But it's close enough that the two factors of how close to the money we are, and who covers whom, are important details that could sway my answer.

I think near the money bubble its a fold for me.

I doubt villain ever has A2-AT/KQ. I do think villain does this with TT and even 99/88 sometimes but in these situations villain has JJ+ much more frequently.

I think we are probably getting almost the right price to call given we need only ~40% equity to break even, but its the wrong time to do it.

I prefer to just call preflop because we have position and are under repping our hand. We are also keeping SB's range wider.

Thanks nath. This is a spot where I would usually just flat, hope to flop a pair, and let him bluff off all of his chips, but for some reason I was anxious to 3-bet and didn't think it through.

Here's the info you asked for: we were half an hour from the bubble. I believe this was only 2-3 players since the bubble took quite some time to bust in such a small tournament. Also, he covered me. Seems like a fold, which means it probably plays better as a flat pre?

AJ plays much better as a 3b value jam hand at 20-25bbs than 40bbs. Given the bubble and stack depths, I think AJ and AJs become our best flatting hands. 3b/calling the jam would need to be an exploitative play based on the villain imo. We have a nice stack to vacuum short stacks when the bubble bursts.

We should generally only be 3b/folding our bluffs here. 3betting broadway hands is a disaster when we get jammed on in this spot. Our hand is so good yet we've turned it into a coinflip/bluff catcher.

In theory villains mainly supposed to jam AKo. I can imagine some pocket pairs jamming as well. If it ever is profitable its marginal at best villain has to be loose af.