[James.]

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What's confusing me is why we 3-bet PF if we are going to call down (or even peel the flop) when we miss so badly. Since this guy is aggro enough that A-high will be good here fairly frequently, why not just call and encourage him to bluff at us the whole way (and save a little when we are behind)? I understand the desire to take control of the hand, but it seems like we can't really "take control" unless this guy will sometimes fold a better hand than ours.

But I suck at blind defense, so maybe I'm missing something key here?

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for me it's not about this hand, necessarily. i mean Ahigh headsup has an advantage, but let's not pretend it's a monster. i want to accomplish a couple things with this hand. first off we can 3bet because our hand is usually best, but hand values change most significantly from the first two cards then to the flop so let's get money in while our hand is usually at an advantage. it sets up postflop better in alot of cases. a simple flop or turn continuation bet wins it uncontested frequently. so it gives you more than just having to hit the flop to win. we flop a good hand and go on to win another portion of the time. but for me, more importantly, we are sending a message to the SB, button, anyone watching: "don't try to steal from me [censored]". keeping them from getting fancy or overly aggressive/tricky when it is your blind is to your advantage because it will cost you less to play in the future. look in your PT database and tell me you couldn't use some savings from the blinds. and also, in this case we have position for the entire hand; that adds value in and of itself. 3 bet.