Re: AJs, flop top pair + flush draw,.25/.50 NL, big pot
 

And aren't there only 1 combination of JJ, 3 of AA cause of what you hold. I think there are (6?) of KK, and 12 of AK, making AA and JJ, the hands that are actually ahead, unlikely. This is assuming villain is competent too, at 50 dollar stakes you'll see something totally ridiculous a good percentage of the time.

Re: AJs, flop top pair + flush draw,.25/.50 NL, big pot
 

You're pushing $78 into a total pot of $27 if you push on the flop as played. The main pot is protected by the all-in player so you're not stealing it if you don't show down the best hand regardless. The flop raiser won't give you action with a worse hand if he's beat, and will be ahead of you in most situations where he can call.

Basically, you fold the hands you want chasing you, and you get action from the hands who are ahead. If villain re-opened the betting on the flop then i'd certainly stick it in with TPTK and a nut FD, but as played a huge overbet isnt going to pay you as a long term move.

Re: AJs, flop top pair + flush draw,.25/.50 NL, big pot
 

What I'm saying is that there aren't many hands that are "ahead". If you're commited to calling a push on the turn(which OP obviously was) then why not push when you have the best of it? Why call with possibly the worst of it on the turn?

Re: AJs, flop top pair + flush draw,.25/.50 NL, big pot
 

NOTE: I'm very much a newbie. Someone please correct me if I'm way off here.

I don't see how lautzutao can be terribly wrong here. Bad guy limp-re-raised. In my (very limited) experience, that's AA,KK most of the time. Does he really have 77 here? Again, in my experience, people who limp-re-raise with AA,KK often get married to their hand on flops like this. If you push and he calls, you've both put in 80, and the pot ends up at 188.95, so you've just put in 42% of the pot. If you give him overpairs and monsters to call with,

Board: 5h 7h Jc
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 42.7548 % 42.75% 00.00% { AhJh }
Hand 2: 57.2452 % 57.25% 00.00% { AA-JJ, 77, 55 }

Taking QQo out of the mix brings it down to 60:40 and adding AcKc back in (I cheated and looked at the results) makes it 43:57 again.

There are some other advantages of pushing, too: you don't want to give him any sort of interesting odds on the flop, so I'd probably pot it back at him. Re-potting it would be most of your stack, though, so you're might as well stick the rest in for fold equity, no? Also, if he calls with AA, you'll conveniently be getting exactly the correct odds on your push with the added advantage that he'll think you're a total nutcase and call you down a lot more in the future. If he folds something reasonable, you still get that advantage since the short stack is all-in.

I'm quite the newbie, though .. someone please correct me if I'm way off.

NOTE: I could easily be off by a few percent since the short stack is stealing some of your equity .. I don't think they're stealing a lot of it, though.