It seems to be 'standard' to be 3-bet jamming with most Ax oop preflop 25bbs deep or shallower against a wide opener. This is what I am doing, and what a decent number of opponents appear to be doing at the $7 HU Hypers on stars, though some like to 3-bet NAI with AT+
Should we be extremely aggressive on Ace high boards in position with air, because our opponent rarely has top pair in this spot and will find it very difficult to call 3 streets, especially if we bomb / jam river.
eg. Hand 8 of a $7 HU hyper against an agg player who has already 3-bet jammed vs an open. We are 24bbs deep and have 96o in the SB. We minraise, villain calls. Flop AT4 rainbow. We c-bet 1/2 pot villain calls. At this point villain has an awful lot of Tx, some 4x and hands like KQ,KJ,QJ and some K8 floats. Obviously there is some Ax in there but not a lot, and zero Ax for some players. On a 2 turn, we bet 55% pot and on a river 7 we jam, expecting that villain is going to fold an awful lot of the time? I am not sure what a random villain is going to do with Tx. Against a player who is A) not a calling station, and B) 3-betting all or almost all of Ax is this a a good play? Even when villain has QT this is going to be a tough call on the river, as it is quite conceivable that I would play AJ, T4 or even sets like this.
I am not sure if the river jam is any good or just the turn bet.
I apologise if this is a stupid question / has been covered elsewhere, I am new here.
Thanks!
on AT4 QT is pretty much the top of villains range for the reasons you describe. thinking villians are aware of this and wont want to be folding the top of their range without reads; fishy villains have second pair and have already called 2 streets so might not fold either. for that reason AT4 might be a difficult board to barrel. a cbet to fold out air is fine. a smaller sizing on that sort of board is ok against people who play fit or fold.
if you do want to barrel A high flops v recs then betting 2 streets is usually the worst option. so decide on the turn if you want to continue. if you do then bet the turn small to keep villains range wide [and maybe cheaply folding out QJ type floats that beat you] whilst setting up an big river bomb that will put maximum pressure on villain. as played, a turned 2 does nothing to change board texture and Tx is not going to fold imo i'd be giving up.
AT4 might not be the flop to plan a 3 street barrel on as there are so few 4x / draws in check calling ranges.
an A86 flop may be better to barrel with air: there are more 8x, 6x, draws and floats in a check calling range. also there are more potential over-cards to the 8 that can turn a flopped 2nd or 3rd pair into 3rd or 4th pair by the river.
Thanks, this is really helpful.