We've got a gutshot

[HOWMANY]

Live 40 full. My image is that I am running fantastic and am unstoppable. Villain is James, a regular and a recreational player as far as I know. I think he is substantially better than pretty much all of the regulars that I assume play poker for a "living", his preflop ranges seem good and TAGgy. Postflop he can make some pretty costly mistakes and probably fears people have way better than they actually have, not realizing how wide their range can be. However he plays pretty well in position in multiway pots with both draws and made hands, isolates pretty often against certain kinds of players, etc. He knows I am an extremely aggressive blind stealer, the hand before this on the button I had AQ and showed it after sb folded and James folded on the bb.

Fold to me in the CO, I open KTo, he 3bets sb and we're HU.

Flop: AJ4r

He bets, I have three options

With the way I set up my read I'm a little afraid that "raise" is the obvious answer, but I suspect there are plenty of people that advocate calling, and perhaps some that want to fold, I'm curious to see who wants to do what.

[JohnHHolliday]

I want to fold here, there isn't a lot of money in the pot and there is a good chance you are dead to a Q. His three bet screams solid hand in this situation (Although the fact that you just showed AQ might lead him to believe you are full of it.)

Seems to me that your best bet is to pack it in and accept that he won this round...regardless I would NEVER just call in this spot.

[2handed]

A flop raise is standard here based how we expect him to respond to your image. If he is good enough though you may not get a fold out of hands like medium PP's since he expects you to raise this flop, but you have up to 10 outs against those hands. I would call a flop 3-bet and re-evaluate turn.

Calling flop and raising the turn may get more respect from this player who as you say "fears people have way better than they actually have," and allows him to make a big fold. Getting 3-bet on the turn sucks though. This would be my secondary play.

[HOWMANY]

If he calls the flop raise how many barrels are we willing to fire?

[2handed]

I think folding most of the time in this spot against someone who plays well preflop is way too weak. His preflop 3-bet looks like it is for isolation so his range could be pretty wide. His ranges preflop probably includes KQs and other suited connectors that are going to fold if you give him action on flop/turn. There are 4 BBs in the pot after he bets the flop and by raising the flop and turn c-betting you are risking 2 BBs to win 4.5 BBs (assuming he calls flop raise). So this play can work less than half the time and still be profitable. Additionally you will improve to a straight on the turn 1 in 12 times or a pair 1 in 8 times, a pair of tens or kings being good to take this down a good bit of the time if he is 3-betting nearly every pair preflop.

[2handed]

I'm firing on turn for sure if I raise flop, but usually checking river UI.

[blindside]

you should play this however you play an A if you don't want to give up...

I think calling flop and seeing what the turn card brings would be better... if he has a smallish pp i doubt he fires another barrel into that flop...

[drbk2]

I would frequently call here, and then fire the turn if he checks. From his perspective, if you were to call this flop, you could have a showdown hand or a draw. If you were to raise this flop, you could have a showdown hand or a draw or a complete move. If you add that to the fact that he is probably never folding to a flop raise and might 3 bet you on the flop, I think calling is way better.

[Frond]

Smallish pot, so perhaps fold and maybe look for a worse opponent to go up against next time?

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

Folding the flop is mathematically incorrect by a fairly wide margin.

You can call or you can raise -- and you should be calling a lot more often than you're raising -- but if you're folding, you're leaking.