Zmej, I'm not sure if you personally favor folding here or just want to know why I don't consider it, but I'll try to go into detail.
My attempt to steal is just shy of 40%. TT makes up the top of my opening range, and I got a very favorable flop for it. If I am folding TT here, it is going to be ridiculously profitable for my opponent (who is in this case good) to just raise me with any two here. I don't want to do the exact math of it here, but since my opponent is risking $26 to win $17, I have to fold 65.3% of the time for him to show an immediate profit (that's not even counting if there are any hands I would call with and give him +EV opportunities to turn or river me). If I'm folding TT here I'm folding WELL above 65.3% of my range.
There is about a 0% chance my opponent has JJ+. If I'm beat, it's because of a set. I run at about 20/16, and I regularly call CO raises on the button with suited connectors and suited big cards like
[Jh], for example. I would imagine these in in my opponents range, as well as various gutshots and air.
Granted, I'm not crushing a range of sets/all kinds of draws/air. But my hand is vulnerable to semi-bluffs or even total bluffs that have 3 or 6 outs, and there's enough dead money in the pot ($61 once I call) that I can't be all too worried about not getting money from many worse hands.
Either way, I'm not really trying to optimize my play or anything (though I do think about this stuff as I'm starting to take cards more seriously), I just don't think his range is pp's lower than 9's, and I don't think he's incapable of bluffing. If he was 16/10 then I would most likely strongly consider folding.
I know you know all of this Zmej and were probably just leveling me to try to either see if I could explain it or trying to make me answer my own question (for'ners are deep like that). Would you fold against this villain Zmej? If you would fold as some of you guys have already said, what're you doing with AA here?
The better player should win the race. Always.