Unsuccesfull bluff close to bubble

I'm not a tourney player so I probably can't give you a good answer, but the thread name was intriguing so I opened this and will try to say something ♦

First thing I would check is that if you really want to be calling a 3bet with AJo out of position with 30bb effective stacks. That doesn't seem good to me. I would fold or 4bet this in the cash games when 100bb deep. I think this hand could get you in trouble. You also have to think about your tournament life. You still have chip lead and have invested just a bit over 2bb. Do you want to start fighting or should you wait for a better spot?

To your question if villain should fold 99 here, I'm not really sure. The turn call from him seems quite standard. OTR it is possible that he should fold but he doesn't have much left and next positions will be the blinds for him so he will be short quickly. His 99 block your straights. You called a 3bet pre so how many strong hands you have on this board? In the end I'm not sure if his call is that bad. Someone else might be able to say something wise to that.

For me the biggest problems seem to be preflop and probably the turn sizing if you want to stab that.

I agree with la55i. 4bet or fold and I would fold AJo most of the time.
If you call, it's a bad hand to turn into a bluff. I try to bring my missed OOP A-high hands to showdown as cheap as possible.
There is not that much you can have here. AK would 4bet. Most overpairs to. And a lot of the suited connectors that have a FD here are blocked by the board itself.
Maybe some Axh combo's.. But a lot of players have A5-A3 in their 4bet-bluff range in this spot.

So I can only say I like his call a lot in this spot.

Pre-flop I would fold for sure against a tight player and if you call you can't continue if he Cbets if you miss the flop and that happens a lot. After the flop I would just check it down. It's always tough to let him fold a decent pair and I expect he would only fold if a 3th would arrive.

Cheers,
SDK1987

Classic spot for light 3bet but this villain really doesn't look like one to do those from 50 hand sample. Don't like calling in general even versus looser opponent so it's more of shove or fold. Versus this guy fold likely better.

As played you have way better hands to bet on turn so just check this and aim for showdown. You don't really have great rivers with this holding. Once in a while you might also win in showdown unimproved. So just check-fold.

Thanks a lot for all the comments really make me change my thinking in some ways. I just don't like to get 3-beted all the time and just folding but looks like I just have to be patient and don't lose my chips in stupid pots :). This 4-bet strategy also looks good I should add some weaker bluff hands to my range, I didn't do it at all, just really very rare to some super aggressive players. Also after few days and look back reading through all the comments does not make me feel that great about my bluff... Once again, thanks for all pieces of advice.