LOL, I was hoping so....  Are you miss oracle?!

It's David Yan I think. Used to be called omgclaydol

I agree that the possibility of my opponent having hearts, and hitting a flush draw as well is very slim.  When you say the only good flops for us are when we flop fd/trips/2pr - these are the flops where playing our hand is easy.  Other times when we flop one pair, or a gutshot, is when it is more difficult to play our hand.  When I call this hand, I don't expect to only play back with just the fd/trips/2pr.  I don't know how balanced my range is here, but I do plan to make plays when I miss sometimes, and be stickier when I flop a mediocre hand.

Yes we are OOP, which makes things difficult, but we must realize that we are up against the weakest 3bet range possible, the btn, when we opened in the CO.  A5hh calling 3bets OOP is not an easy task, but I rationalize the weaker btn 3betting range allows me to call lighter pre flop, and then post flop.  I would not call this hand if I opened UTG and got 3bet in CO for example.  Also, we need the pf 3better to be 3betting fairly wide - if they are only 3bettng 5-6% total, we can't call this hand.

A lot of people don't like calling 3bets OOP and very often elect to 4bet/fold their entire range.  I personally feel that this is playing an abridged version of the game.  Playing 3bet pots OOP is one of the most difficult parts of the game, but just because its hard doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, learn how to get better at it, or try to discover more creative ways to deal with it.  A5hh is probably near the bottom of our range calling a 3bet OOP vs. a 8-10% 3better.  My question to you is if you want to fold A5hh here, what hands do you want to play?

I think there is some merit to calling the flop with our hand because we hold all the major bluff cards.  So when our A or heart hits, we're likely to get at least another bet.  I think we could play our hand this way some of the time, in fact, against the right opponents, I'd recommend it.  The downside to this play is that we never stack XXhh, QQ-99 faces no heat from us and we never get any folds, and those hands have very little ability to pay us off.  Also, its very frustrating when J8o, or QTo hits a pair and checks back and wins a decent pot off us.  We also have a chance to get bluffed off our hand.  The upside is that we don't auto-stack off to AK/AA/KK where we have 25-38% equity max.  I think we should be more likely to flat with AQhh here because we have so much more showdown value and hold a queen, whereas A5hh has less showdown value and is more vulnerable and dominated.

8:11: We can definitely call here, although I feel that calling with 100% of hands is just ridiculous and too loose. Getting great odds and having position can't overcome the pure garbageness of a hand like T3o or J5o.

10:20: Normally, I'm raising near a min raise, but slightly larger, to setup a pot-sized ship on the turn with the entirety of my range.  Since we were slightly deeper, I made the raise slightly bigger.  I'm probably shipping on anything but a paired turn.  

I think raising to 3X the cbet size is fine but almost unnecessary at times, because by making it, lets say a 2.5X raise, we reach the leverage point just as 3X size does.  Yes, our opponent can just call with a flush draw, but if they decide to play it that way, they must realize that they may only see one card.  Looking at possibly so much dead money on the flop, facing a fishy line with a hand with a bunch of equity, say TQhh or 46hh, it's easy to see how shipping a flush draw in their spot looks more attractive than calling and hoping to hit...  2-2.5X saves you money on your bluffs here.

34:30: Its not a terrible call necessarily with KK because of the fact that an opponent can be making a stand with JJ or AQ here.  There's also the fact that we could've played 67ss/68ss/78ss/89ss/J9ss/KJss/AJss/A2ss/A3ss/A4ss like this if we didn't raise the flop.  I feel that if someone had QJss/QKss/AQss, they would probably just call the turn.  I agree that most ppl are unbalanced in this spot, but as you can see from the # of hand combinations, they don't necessarily have to be.  There's 9 combos of sets, and 2 combos of QTs.  So removing some of the biggest draws on the flop, say 67ss, A2ss and A3ss, and taking into account that QJss/QKss will probably just call; if we have AQ and JJ shipping at any reasonable frequency whatsoever here, the remaining 8 combos of spade hands, mixed with the pot odds he's facing, easily make up for the 11 combos of nuts hands that he is afraid of.  Maybe slightly more if we flat QQ here.

37:50:  He's a SSer.  If I flat the 20$, the pot is 100$ and he has 200$ left, we are 2 bets from all in with a hand with reverse implied odds.  What's our plan gonna be, stack off if we hit an A? Take a stab when chkd to? Wonder why we called in the first place when we hit a 4 and wonder what to do?  Basically hope to flop a flush draw that only happens something like one in every 8 or 9 flops? If I was deeper of course I would flat but I would rather ship over this 4bet with my hand vs his stack than flat the 4bet IP vs a type of player that possesses pure aggression as their only weapon...

No problem Rob5ter.  And btw, I didn't feel like you were criticizing my game at all.  And as long as its not done in a disrespectful, rude fashion - I think we are all here to criticize each other's games', somewhat at least, so that we can all learn from each other and improve.

8:11 - Agreed.

34:30 - Yeah, most ppl are really unbalanced here.  However, the idea of playing big draws a little more passively, or delaying our aggression until the turn could help our balance in this spot, and may have many other positives effects too (albeit some drawbacks on terrible turns...)

37:50 - Another point is that I feel like his range is very strong here.  I think its more likely that the SSer is 4betting for value and trying to give us the illusion of fold equity, than actually 4bet bluffing... that's my hunch from playing millions of hands against these guys.  Our odds are great vs. KK-, but the fact that I don't think our opponent will fold AK/AQ if they miss the flop/turn because we have only 2 bets to get all in, somewhat negates the positional advantage we have post flop and handcuffs as from being able to take away pots.