You make some valid points FP. However my concerns with flatting 3bet here oop, is basically we never know where we are in the hand. We become passive in the hand more often that not and end up chk/calling 1 or 2 streets or even folding flop. This could become totally expoitable as we're going to be bluffed off our hand a lot on the turn and river by a decent reg. Obviously not all the time, but I dunno, it just seems like could this ever be +ev play in the long term? I mean its very situational/villain dependent I know. BTW your not being difficult, it's always good to have varied reviews/analysis of a hand.
You're not flatting a 3-bet though, it's just the one raise.
Continuing this reasoning by answering this:
Not trying to be difficult here, but shouldnt we be worried about us making a mistake as well. We have Zach's range crushed here. Looking from his point of view have jag call with JJ is usually a mistake by jag, so isnt this something we want to avoid? I havent read theory of poker for awhile so im probably missing something here.
The thing with JJ is that we're not likely to have a ton of hot/cold
equity in this pot. Some, sure. Better than average. But not AA or KK type equity where we can be positive that we're absolutely crushing.
Based solely on hot/cold equity, the value we "miss" by not raising (which would be the mistake we would be doing if we knew both our opponents had worse hands and would call a raise) is small, whereas the cost of the mistake of raising into a better hand is big. It evens out a bit - and maybe to the point where raising gains an advantage - because big hands are more rare than bad hands.
But we give up a few things when we raise, as well. We give up our implied odds for hitting a set vs. what might be a big hand. We risk driving the bad player out of the pot. We miss out on getting to trap both of the other players for a raise when we like the flop.
I don't think it's clear-cut. If we want to make money off of Zach, though, I think we need to have some idea of what way we'll win that money off of him. Getting him to fold preflop is not bad, since that creates $4 worth of dead money and him giving up some equity (he's bound to have
some equity even when opening very light).
We'll have the pleasant situation of having "position" on the two players after the flop. We're first to act, but Zach has initiative and is likely to c-bet most flops, no? And that gives us a chance to react to the flop and see what the other guy does.
In any situation, if we raise I think we should have our battle plan prepared before we do it, to avoid having to wonder what to do next when not everyone folds.