Hello guys, microstakes player who's been playing about a year now. Was mostly losing/break-even first 6 months but the past 3-4 months I've been starting to get the hang of things and have positive win rate (~9BBs over 25k hands)

I felt like I was put into a few awkward spots today holding hands like AK and AQs and facing some aggression pre-flop.

First hand I only had a very small sample size on CO, probably less than 50 hands and he was showing 4% 3B. After 72 hands he was 26/18/AF 3.5 and 3B 8% CB 43%
Stacks:
UTG - UTG ($3.08)
MP - MP ($2.00)
CO - Hero ($3.44)
BTN - BTN ($2.00)
SB - SB ($2.14)
BB - BB ($2.00)

Preflop: ($0.03, 6 players) Hero is CO with K A
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.06, BTN raises to $0.21, 3 folds, Uncalled bet of $0.15 returned to BTN

Total Pot: $0.15
BTN mucks

BTN wins $0.15

At the time I saw that he had a fairly low 3B% of 4%. In the past I would pretty much always flat a 3B with AK whether IP or OOP since I hated folding AK preflop. Is it ever reasonable to fold in this situation when I know villain is most likely 3betting me with a range of 3-4% and I'm OOP. I hate calling and just hoping to hit an A and K on the flop and x/folding to a cbet if I miss.

I have a few questions:
1) When can we justify calling the villain's 3B OOP with hands like AK? I.e. can we start flatting or 4betting if we think villain is 3betting us light, especially in spots like this where we open CO and get 3B by the BTN?
2) If villain is 3betting an absurd amount like >10%, do we 4B/Call an all in ? If we
4B and if he calls and we miss the flop i.e. flop is (842tt), then what do we do?

2nd hand:
BTN is 21/13/AF 4.0 3B 8%. I also noticed villain also had quite a high 4B% even though it was a small sample size. 129 hands (4B=80% 4/5 times)

No Limit Hold'em $0.01/$0.02
Winning Poker Network
6 players
Formatted by pokercopilot.com: Poker HUD for Mac and Windows

Stacks:
UTG - UTG ($4.51)
MP - MP ($2.31)
CO - CO ($2.55)
BTN - BTN ($1.89)
SB - Hero ($3.49)
BB - BB ($2.35)

Preflop: ($0.03, 6 players) Hero is SB with Q A
3 folds, BTN raises to $0.04, Hero raises to $0.16, 1 fold, BTN raises to $0.50, 1 fold, Uncalled bet of $0.34 returned to BTN

Total Pot: $0.34
BTN mucks

BTN wins $0.34
His 4B sizing to 3x just seemed like it was too big for me to call. I know he was 4betting a lot so far but I'm not sure if I feel comfortable calling a 4B or GII with AQs. His BTN raising range wasn't anything ridiculous at the time, 25%.

You want to be defending AK either by calling or 4Bing nearly always, may be some exceptions vs incredibly nitty 3Bettors in UTG. fwiw sample is too small to be judging 3B, need at least 100 hands so get some kind of reasonable data set.

I'd go with 4b/c AK from BTN onwards at 2NL vs most players, calling the rest of the time. Q2 is like asking how to play poker, I'd cbet 1/3p.

H2 looks okay, I wouldn't start flatting 4bets OOP w AQ until you're more comfortable postflop. Shoving as a bluff (possibly value) may be an option, but I'd rather fold for now and just GII w AK/TT+ vs this villain.

1)I 4bet AKo all day long. 72 hands is not sample but when you are scarry you can fold to 5bet vs nitty opponents. For calling is better AKs because playability postflop.
2)4bet/calling; check/fold because his calling 4bet range is too strong (you can sometimes cbet 1/3 oop because you have strong overcards, but give up when you don't hit t)

2nd hand: you can only call pre when you don't play linear 3b range on SB; ass played i fold vs this sizeing 4b because he hasn't full stack and calling is pot commited. When you know he is over aggro you can shove pre.

1) CO vs BTN, I definitely wouldn't be folding AK. Would prefer to 4bet, but if you think that villain really is nitty (it's rare anyone is actually nitty enough to not be happy to 4bet AK CO vs BTN) then you can just call, but in no way folding in these positions.

2) 10% isn't really an absurd 3bet BTN vs CO, but absolutely 4betting and calling a shove would be fine.
On that exact flop (842tt), I would cbet 1/3 pot after 4betting because we are going to have a huge range advantage on that texture. Other types of textures where AK has 'missed' would be played very differently though, so please don't go cbetting 1/3 pot every time you miss with AK in a 4bet pot.

In the second hand, villains 4bet is on the larger side, but I would still be happy to call the 4bet with AQs.

It does depend how confident you are in your postflop game. If it's not too good, then folding is fine for now, but it is a hand you will want to defend as you get better and move up stakes.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll need to stop being so nitty with AK pre-flop then.

As of now I am not too confident in my post-flop game. I'd say on a scale of 1/10 compared to the average players I'd say it's a 6. I have a hard time navigating through hands very often. I think I'll try to stick with folding AQo/AQs in spots like that.

What are some examples of flops you think AK would not be good to c-bet 1/3rd pot on in 3-bet/4-bet pots? Assuming you have no reads on the villain.