[cartman]

I am sure I must be missing something here and thanks in advance for any enlightenment on the topic.

Let's say a LAG open-raises from the CO and it is folded to me in the big blind. I estimate that he will open-raise here about 30% of the time. He is the kind that is very likely to raise either the flop or the turn if I 3-bet preflop. He is not a maniac, but plenty loose and plenty aggressive. He will show down Ace high or better virtually 100% of the time heads up. If I don't 3-bet preflop, he will bet the flop and the turn nearly 100% of the time and often bet the river also even with an Ace high type hand or as a pure bluff.

I am considering the possibility that I should not 3-bet preflop with hands that have marginal showdown value unimproved. For instance, AK or 55. The reason is that, although I am a favorite over his hand range, most of the time I will soon be in a precarious situation. First of all, the only time I will ever get a fold out of him is when I don't want one. When the flop doesn't improve me, I will very frequently face a flop or turn raise at which point I have to either call him down or risk folding the best hand.

If I just called his raise preflop and allowed him to continue pounding away regardless of his hand, getting to the showdown with my 55 or unimproved AK is far more affordable as I save 1 sb preflop and at least 1 sb postflop. When the flop does improve me I can ambush him with a checkraise on the street of my choosing.

For the sake of completeness I also speculate that this may be the best approach when I am the big blind facing an open-raise from this same opponent when he is in the small blind, even though I have position in that scenario and his hand range is considerably wider.

Why am I wrong?

Thanks,
Cartman