AK vs well-known ranked player

Villain is well known and obv respected player. I've played probably 100 hands with him over stars/ftp and whether or not he knows me beyond me being a pxf sub probably not. He probably thinks I'm a nit or standard tag as well.

FullTiltPoker Game #5724424990: $12,500 Guarantee (42859401), Table 6 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold'em - 13:32:04 ET - 2008/03/21
Seat 1: JohnnyBax (8,875)
Seat 2: missdi0712 (4,740)
Seat 3: guntotingnun (6,255)
Seat 4: CodeRedRulez (2,430)
Seat 6: saulypie (4,475)
Seat 7: Mike_Malibu (4,320)
Seat 8: Nattlegend (300)
Seat 9: gepeto77 (5,170)
saulypie posts the small blind of 60
Mike_Malibu posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CodeRedRulez [Ah Kd]
Nattlegend folds
gepeto77 folds
JohnnyBax raises to 360
missdi0712 folds
guntotingnun folds
CodeRedRulez raises to 960
saulypie folds
Mike_Malibu folds
JohnnyBax calls 600
Flop: xxx

Whats our plan here if he checks and we brick extremely hard? Standard play is to shove but what is he calling us preflop that he's folding the flop if he's thinking "he's got AK"? What about if he shoves flop?

I sat with him for about 30 mins last night in a tilt 25 freeze and he was super tight, just based on that I would give up unless you hit flop

we could just shove pre and save the agony

Bax/Sheets are glorified nits IMO, you're beat here and you can check/fold. Just in case any pocketfives trolls find their way here, I'm not saying that they're bad, they probably play better than I do in some spots, just that they're not tough to play against.

Also +1 for shoving pre-flop.

I have trouble saying Bax is a nit but I agree with sheets. These days i'm trying to play my AK like its not AK cuz I seem to get action when I am in coinflips with AK but not the same as I would with aces.

plus, a 20 BB overshove without antes looks exactly like what i have.

BTW we'd be getting 2.45-1 on a flop if he open shoves. No one calls?

No way, if you put the re-raise in you are going with the hand. If put 40% of your stack into a hand you gotta go with it. I really like the re-raise here, making it 960 makes it look like a huge hand especially to a thinking player like Bax. I think you played it well. Personally though I make the 3 bet 1200 or so, so he doens't have any doubt I'm pot suck.

Disagree with both of you. Bax has been around the block enough times to know that many people re-raise small with the weaker part of their range in order to look strong. He won't necessarily give you any more credit than he'd give you if you shoved.

If you want to make it 1200 then whatever, but this raise size is small enough that he can see a flop in position with TT, while he'd have to fold it if you just shoved your entire re-raising range. I think you were so excited about leveling him that you put him in a profitable spot that you didn't have to give him. He has JJ/TT here almost always IMO so if the flop is J98 then shoving is retarded.

(I haven't done the math yet but I'm assuming that call/call if you're ahead of AK is a profitable strategy for him assuming that you're raising AK,99+ and shoving any flop. I know he can't call a pre-flop shove vs. that range.)

Shove pre flop obv.
Don't let him outplay you and let him call for a flip if he wants but most probably just win the pot pre flop which is nice.
Shove pre flop please.

As long as you are pushing KK/AA here pre as well, then a shove is fine pre. To be honest though, it really doesn't matter. If you raise here pre, you are putting all your chips in no matter what the flop, so it's just a matter of image/leveling.