How is best to play this? Villain is a standard reg with 7% three bet.

My problem is that I think we have the best hand a good amount of the time, and there are all sorts of pair plus draws, flush draws, AK, AT type hands to get value from. So we can raise for value and protection.

But - does raising narrow his range too much? I think once he three bets this is just so strong that it's badly played by me. But in general do we want to just try and play a medium size pot on safer runouts? Or do we protect ourselves from the bad runouts by raising? (Or maybe raise/folding, more specifically).

PokerStars - €0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 218.4 BB
SB: 54.9 BB (VPIP: 65.91, PFR: 27.27, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 44)
BB: 106 BB (VPIP: 27.99, PFR: 21.22, 3Bet Preflop: 4.89, Hands: 625)
UTG: 94.3 BB (VPIP: 34.09, PFR: 6.82, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 44)
CO: 52.9 BB (VPIP: 61.54, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A Q

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, BB raises to 9.5 BB, Hero calls 6.5 BB

Flop: (19.5 BB, 2 players) T Q A
BB bets 12.1 BB, Hero raises to 30 BB, BB raises to 47.9 BB, Hero calls 17.9 BB

Turn: (115.3 BB, 2 players) 3
BB bets 48.6 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 48.6 BB

River: (212.5 BB, 2 players) 8

Hate the raise OTF.
Just call and keep V range as wide as possible.

yep, the flop raise is bad. As above says, you wan't to keep his bluffs in and you don't want raise flop and get 3b as your top two will shrink up.

Yep, fair, the raise just narrows his range to the stuff that crushes us.

Instinctively raising flop myself but I'm wondering if that is right.

If V 3bets TT they will have TT(3)/QQ(1)/AA(1)/KJs(4) for 9 better hands, and 4 AQ for the chop. I'm not sure this V will have ATs/QTs in their 3bet range, and I think a lot of their pair+FDs will check flop, and you block a bunch of these anyway. If we give V 98s(2)/J9s(2)/AK(8) we have close to 50%:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

20,790 trials (Exhaustive)

board: T Q A

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
Ad Qs	48.92%	10,028	284
Js9s, Jd9d, 9d8d, 9s8s, AK, TT, QQ, AA, KJs	51.08%	10,478	284

So if we add in even any of the pair+FD hands you mention, or remove even some TT from V's 3b range (very possible) then raising flop seems good, unless I've missed something.

Raising flop possibly only feels bad because we can see what happened after the raise and that min3bet is like super-nutted.

Missed AQ from the calc:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

24,750 trials (Exhaustive)

board: T Q A

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
Ad Qs	49.45%	10,208	4,064
Js9s, Jd9d, 9d8d, 9s8s, AK, TT, QQ, AA, KJs, AQ	50.55%	10,478	4,064

I think keeping bluffs in is great, but V's bluffs on this wet of a board will have huge equity against us surely and we don't want them to see a cheap turn? I don't think random bluffs hoping to get us off mid PPs/Tx/etc are going to continuing after we call flop anyway.

Js9s, Jd9d, 9d8d, 9s8s - wouldn't put this in the 3b range. Doesn't make sense to 3b these when you're getting such a good price with such a good hand that plays well post. KJs is pretty marginal 3b for value too

Well this is exactly what I thought in game. So it's feels like there is no 'nice' line. To win the hand we have to stay ahead of air and worse hands, but to do that we have to not raise, which at the same time leta villain realise his equity. Maybe it's just a spot we have to accept is ****, and that we will lose/give up on many run outs.

MouseyB you describe villain having 3b% of 7%. In the HH BB has 3b 4.89%. why the discrepancy (this may well be due to my lack of understanding of how PT4 stats are displayed)

Yeah it's actually a fairly old hand...guys 3B stat is now nearly 7%, and he's pretty standard for the pool in most ways. So I was kind of wondering how to play in against a villain who is somewhat balanced

I think you played it well. I like shipping the safe turn as we are getting it in with the best of it usually. We block AA and QQ and there are only 3 combos of TT. I think he might be 3betting with KJs as a bluff occasionally but realistcally we're afraid of 9 combos of hands. There might be some flush draws, AK, AT, QT, and 4 combos of AQ left in the deck. I don't have stove handy currently but I would think we're ahead of this range with AQ here.

perhaps this is overly simplistic, but at these stakes if i hit top two pair in 3b pot I'm usually pretty happy to get it in.

I agree that he really shouldn't have a lot of hands worse when he re-raises the flop, but call, get it in on a safe turn, and i think you get it in good more then enough what with the dead money still in the pot