First of all, thanks for the help and analysis here. I do agree that betting is better.
All of the insight here is great, and I'll add my analysis now: The problem with going for pot control here is two-fold: there aren't enough hands you are behind, and there aren't enough hands you can milk extra value out of.
There aren't enough hands you're behind
The limp call preflop line looks like either a baby ace, high random cards, or a PP (excluding JJ-AA). If we assign this as a general range for villain, there are only 10 combos ahead of you. This includes 3 combos of each flopped set (excluding AA), and 4 combos total of A8s and A3s. The total number of hands that are behind you but will probably allow you to build the pot here is much greater: Assuming at this level Aces will call multiple streets of value, There are 75+ combos of AQ- and PP behind you. So going for pot control is catering to 10/85 of the villains range.
and there aren't enough hands you can milk extra value out of
My main argument before was that hands are more likely to pay off turn+river with an ace than flop+turn. This has huge holes! What about the flop+river line? What about the higher number of chances for opponent to get frisky and put a raise in somewhere when you start on the turn? At this level it's important to give villain as many chances as you can to make a mistake, and betting the flop accomplishes this.
What about hands that would fold the flop but lead/call the turn? There are some of these imo... many PP, especiall >8 would go for a cheap showdown because you skipped out on the obvious CB. They may even lead the turn. And even though PP are a rather large part of villains range, it's much more valuable in NLHE to get THREE streets of value from AQ- than ONE extra street of value from a PP. Because of the ever escalating size of bets, you may miss out on 40BB if you pot control against AQ where you are gaining an extra 10 from a random PP.
Thanks for all the responses!
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