Lewman

Hey Justin, Welcome!

I would like to say I was in your exact same position not long ago roll wise and I would say I have a very different opinion to these "anti live" comments. I have played a ton online and slowly grinded from 5nl-200nl and back down and up a few times. In 2006 I won a tourny for 25k in Party so that kinda rolled me for bigger games but I was in Uni and money was needed for booze and food!

I personally found that for me the best bankroll builder was not online but live 1-2 at the casino. I am from Canada as well and our Casinos have pretty good rake structures. You will feel extremely intimidated at first, that is just unavoidable! Don't feel bad about that, your hands will shake, you will pick up cards awkwardly and you will make a few dumb mistakes with betting incorrectly/acting out of turn. It happens! 

It would be good to hear what your bankroll situation is? Do you have a set aside portion of money? or do you work and can realistically make a bigger investment?

Live 1/2 is filled with the biggest mix of casino degens (you see the same dudes every day in the pit and poker table). New aspiring players like yourself, random out of towners dropping in, old retired nits, and the 30s guys who think they are poker pros and often spout off about every move and decision they made.  You will be able to identify each type of player almost instantaneously and play accordingly. 1/2 albeit the smallest game in the room is a very good moneymaker and if you play solid you are virtually guaranteed to make money. It sucks the first time your $200 get stacked but you will be stacking others much more frequently.

Sit down at 1/2 with $100 and play really tight only playing premiums to get a good feel for how the game is, just focus on only playing premium hands and really trying to identify each player at the table and what their hand range is in spots. You are essentially just paying $3 every orbit to learn and then playing your top % of hands. You will likely even make money this was as players get bored and call your 2 raises an hour calling 3 streets with their K9o on AK27A board. 

Once you feel comfortable and you notice your hands aren't shaking, you are feeling good about the flow of the game and how things are going you can look at opening up your hand range and buying in for $200-300.  

**This make take a while so be patient and don't get down on yourself if you have a bad day, if losing $100 is gonna really bother you, leave and come back another day**

I am not saying this is 100% the best way of building a roll for everyone, I found it the best way for me. Online especially nowadays its A LOT harder to move up really fast. Going from 5nl-100nl will likely take an extremely long time with hundreds of hours of play and study. Live you will be an earner in the game almost instantly make 10x the hourly you would at the microstakes. Online doesn't really totally prepare you for live either, so if your ultimate goal is to compete live at 1/2-2/5 and make some decent cash on the side I would commit more to live than online. Online is going to help you with aggression and hand ranges but does little in the way of helping maneuver live fish you are going to meet. If you go into the casino raising every limper and opening for 3x you will quickly find yourself getting into 5 way pots and looking at the T7K boarding with your AK when the field has 2 pairs and fd's sd's etc. You need to adapt your thinking and open bigger (usually 5x+) and iso a lot bigger. 1/2 the average opening $$ is 10-15 which you would be insane to do online.

Theres my rant! It would be good to hear your income/bankroll situation as I feel that really dictates what you should be doing. If you are working and can realistically take 2 weeks off poker and nab another $100 then your choices are different if you just have $300 and thats it.

"You are very welcome to continue swimming against the tide of consensus here, but I feel it would be wrong of me to allow others to blindly follow your lead when I am quite confident the strategy you have set out is significantly flawed."

So hard to argue with British people, they just make it sound so polite. 

"I believe a raise has vastly more fold equity against a random low-stakes villain than a 3-barrel"

This is very true, I have played a decent amount of micro stakes PLO25-PLO100 and raises scare the majority of players away from speculative hands.

I think Ace Rag is a great hand for bluffing. If you have like A4o for example the hands pair value is pretty low, I mean it can make some mystery straights but really this hands strength is the Ace blocker. On the occasions you take your bluff to the river sometimes A high can beat out their missed draws. I definitely think you should start thinking about Ace rag as a blocker and not compare it to AT+ hands.

Im Canadian so I can play on pretty much any site out there. I wouldnt deposit on any of the US sites, Merge, lock etc

Hes not folding and this will guarantee you get at least one stack in the middle as opposed to them getting a scary flop. 

Kind of a gross spot he seems to have woke up on that turn card giving him a FD or Kx most likely. I think you are beat here 50% of the time. Was this SS just a quick addition to the table or is he frequently shortstacking. I think that kind of info here makes a huge difference if hes tilting or blowing off the last 34.12 I'd be more inclined to call. 

Villains go crazy here a lot with sets to get all the money in. When you raise to 31 and he shoves, I think its pretty obvious he has a small flush/set/2pair that wants to get it in now. Given this information your hand does pretty poorly here. Id probably call the 15 and proceed on turn card, his actions on turn may confirm your suspicions. 

Ditto on the balancing. Not even worth it, at 25NL just go for lines that traditionally are the best way to get value (unless you have significant info).

Id like to start by making your preflop 3 bet larger, its 25nl if hes not folding to 2.25 hes not folding to 2.75 or 3. Id recommend going to 2.99.  

Your flop play is fine, dry as a bone I would bet here often however as you aren't getting credit for much and hes going to peel with a lot of Ax and all of his PP's. The advantage to betting is also that you are trying to build a pot to get stacks in, by playing trappy you are limiting the chances you can make this happen. 

On the turn its quite apparent you probably have two overs, hes betting huge here because he is scared and wants you to fold. I think jamming here is fine. The only hand he could beat you with here is 77(realistically he isnt calling pre after 3b with 2s or 4s) and there is a chance he has ATs-AKs. 

I think turn is definitely a call, he would be drawing to a worse flush or being stubborn with a 98o or something. I often call against fish in these spots because they will always pay you off with lower flushes and 2pair+ when you hit.

I think in this spot by overshoving you are turning your hand face up. You often see people do this with AK/AQ/AJ on low boards. You are essentially allowing him to play perfectly against your, would you ever do this with a T or overpair? Or would you usually raise to 16-20$

I just see this play A LOT at micro stakes and it is usually always overcards and often very easy to call.