I would usually 3bet as a standard but I think the flat is also fine. If he's attempting to steal 75% of the time, I think this is a decent time to do so!

Some other factors... Any stats on his preflop aggression? If he likes to fire multiple barrels, flat PF, let him keep firing and he'll do the job... If he's a one & done kind of dude, I'd raise and try get action preflop

3bet 3bet 3bet. By flatting you are hoping that villain hits the flop enough to continue to put money in the pot, but not enough to beat your 1 pair. That's a lot of hoping. You have the best hand, you are facing action, raise it for value. If you 3bet you have 3 possible consequences. 1) Villain folds, which will be often. You win 4bb without seeing a flop. Happy days. 2) Villain calls. Nice. Good chance of winning a decent pot. 3) Villain 4bets. Fist pump all in. No better moment in cash game poker. But, if you flat there are more possibilities and a lot of them aren't good. If there's one thing pocket aces hates it is seeing a flop.

In tournaments yes there can be times to play Aces differently, but in a cash game you need a really strong reason not to 3bet here. You have a very limited sample and normal looking stats. Smile and raise.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I was totally thinking on the same lines. I didn't have enough hands on the guys to give any credit to the post flop stats I may have had. It was pretty marginal on the preflop stats. That's why I went with the 3bet. I have seen my aces get cracked to many times trying to get fancy and at the micros it just seems to be suicide and also realized that AA is a really nice hand but not the holy grail. As the streets roll out the landscape of the hand can change dramatically and at the end of the day it is still only 1 pair. I am really just trying to focus and playing good solid straightforward poker.

We should be 3Betting as we will be 3Betting our junk hands also so this keeps us balanced. Also BVB confrontations people make huge mistakes so we can induce a ton of spew and basically create a sound dynamic.

You did no wrong.

The problem with flatting is the pot remains small. If you can 3bet and get called you get so much more value in the bloated pot than otherwise.

Also in BvB situations you will get much less credit than from other seats.

The only time where I would consider flatting AA pre flop is in a full ring game 25NL or higher when EP opens and it folds to me, and the villain folds a ton to 3 bets. You just look so strong. But even here you probably make more from 3 betting. Don't worry about slowplaying until you're at $50NL+