I have sat with this AJs hand for a week.. Commerce1/2

[dreamcircus]

You said it yourself; I think being a little passive on the flop put you in the hard spot on the turn there. There are more good reasons for betting/raising the flop than there are for check/call. Also would've then made it easier to decide on the turn.

[Boris]

hmmmm...... algebra. let's assume that when you 3 bet you will always win when called and always lose when bad guy 4 bets. Compare this to the option of just calling.

4x-(1-x)5=3x-(1-x)3 (assumes there will always be a bet and a call on the river)
.
.
.
x=66%. The break even point would actually be a bit higher because of the times the guy hits his kicker on the river and you get check-raised.

So you have to win 66% of the time to make 3 betting the correct play.

reasonable (for Commerce?) hands for the OP are flush, trips and full house and str8.
Possible flush combinations: choose 2 of (K,10,7,6,5) = 10
Trips combinations: A9, K9, J9, 10-9 = 6+8+4+8 = 26
straight combinations: J-10 = 12
Possible full house combos: any pocket 8 or Q9 or Q8sooted = 6 + 6 + 3 = 15
Quad 9s = 1 (wouldn't most 3 bet with 99 pre-flop though?)

Against this range you are winning 75% of the time. bet-3bet. This range of hands for the bad guy is obviously loose. I'm not sure how realistic it is for the player in your hand.

[Caldarooni]

Boris,

Cool post, but I think you left out an important part of the equation - there are 3 players in the hand.

[Boris]

'rooni - True. Do you think it matters that much to ignore the UTG player? If anything I think you play the flush more passively. UTG likely has a POS hand and you can reasonably expect only one more bet from him if you call and nothing if you 3 bet. As far as protecting your hand, I can't believe UTG has trips so I see no value in 3 betting to make him fold. There is also a slim possibility that he is slow playing QQ.