To Aggressive or just Unlucky?

The last two days I've had the same problem, and it has costed me a lot. Twice I was dealt pocket kings and once queens. I raise very high PF, and usually only got 1 caller, sometimes 2. After no over cards would come on the flop or turn, I would usually end up going all in by the river.
Much to my dismay, when I had QQ, my opponent had KK. And twice when I had KK my opponent had AA both times. These hands knocked me out of 2 tournaments, and lost me some money in cash games.

I am usually a tight-aggressive player, and when I get AA KK QQ I play them very aggressively. Was I playing these other hands to aggressively? Or am I just unlucky. If I'm playing QQ, and there is a K and an A on the board I will fold. But I am raising aggressively with no overcards, I'm just falling to a better pocket pair.

My advice is this: In those situations, they are calling your pre-flop raise with something. If the board comes all under cards and you bet 2/3 to pot size and they are still with you, they are either drawing or more likely have something.
If they are drawing, you will not be able to push them off it (assume that), they already called your flop bet, and if they hit their draw (flush, straight) you want to control how much you lose.
They may have a set, lots of pocket pairs will call a pre-flop raise knowing that they will get paid off. Not much you can do except limit the amount you lose, so don't go crazy on turn and river bets if they are still in the hand.
Third, they have an over pair just like you. Again, control the size of your turn and river bets and show them down cheap.

Thanks for the advice.
It makes sense, I realize that since they were calling my large bets that they either had a drawing hand or had pocket pair. I was just hoping they'd flip over JJ or 1010 or something. I need to learn to play it a little less aggressive I guess on the turn/river.

I think its not possible to win always. Somethimes there are problems like your. One time i had KK and other player had 44. He went all in and certainly i called. And guess what? He had full house . I lost it and it was really bad to loose with KK to 44. Lost with KK to AA isnt the worst situation. Keep playing and next time beat someone who have KK beat him with AA . Good luck.

Nothing wrong with being aggressive with big hands.

But don't forget that betting big preflop helps define your hand to your opponents. If you bet out 9xBB and get 1 caller, he could have a pretty wide range of hands. Most likely a pocket pair, hoping to hit trips, but you have no idea how big. He knows, however, that you most likely have something big. But if you bet 3xBB and he raises to 9xBB, then you go to the flop with the same amount of money in the pot, but you can usually put your opponent on a much stronger hand. And he has less information about the strength of your hand.

This is probably more useful in cash games, but it gives you an alternate way of playing big hands.

Yeah, while you're looking to play the best hand, there will be situations where you both have 'monster' hands (either pre- or post-flop), and then online it can be tough to work out whether you're ahead or behind, and often either you'll rake in all of the chips or lose all of them. Those are the breaks.

While you need to bet your strong hands like this to make money, it sounds like you may be over-betting the pot, which can firstly leave you pot-committed, but which is also more likely to scare off the hands you can beat. You don't really want to bet so much that most of the ones that would call would have you beat. Much of the post-flop play then comes down to what the other player is like, and what hand you think they might have. With a reasonable bet pre-flop and a similar bet post-flop, you can generally feel out where you stand, while not being pot-committed.
It won't stop you sometimes going broke in those situations, though. Monster v Monster aren't generally the hands that you're making the mistakes on (though they're obviously costly when you lose them), it's when you lose big on a hand you had no business playing in the first place.

Well said. That makes perfect sense when you think about it, but it's something I hadn't really considered before. Adding yet another useful tip to my collection, thanks to CC.

Well played, for the most part, man! How many times have you seen AK or AA get beaten by JJ or even some wild hand like 5s 6s? It just happens. Nothing is ever given in poker, and even AA isn't invincible. To me, it just seems like getting hit with an overpair to your monster starting hand is a tough break.

There is an argument for betting less, but do you really want to have to fold your QQ on the turn to see your opponent flip over AK with a low-card board? Probably not. It sounds to me like you just got hit with rough situations.

well just my opinion of what you have written here i don't see anything wrong with what you are doing just unfortunate that those other players have a better hand and slow played it. it sounds like you have a bad position to that you always had to bet into these hands also. sorry about the unlucky hands man but don't question it to much. the % of having QQ vs KK or KK vs AA is not high so.

I may have missed it but what was the buy in of the original event? The lower the buy in the greater chance of getting a wider calling range by your opponent which would make your play of getting all the chips in the pot that much more valuable. Seems like this is just hard luck. Keep the long term mindset and you will be fine. Just smile when someone else pushes in on you with Kings and you see pocket rockets.

Thank you everyone for all the advice/encouragement.
As for the buy-in, it happened in a couple $1 45 player SNG's. And once in a micro stakes cash game. So like you said, I guess it was just hard luck.

Pay attention to the players betting patterns even when not in a hand and try to guess what the players are holding.
Trust me, it will help you in the future or even in later hands when up against certain players.

This is an aspect of my game I have been working at a lot lately. I started taking notes in the SNG's I've been playing, and it's helped me make some key decisions.

Once upon a time I ask what the AVERAGE winning hand is. Not a very exciting question, granted, but the answer probably works out to be something greater than a single pair. It seems likely that many/most folks think a single pair will be good, and the bigger that single pair is the better it is, but if the average winning hand is greater than a single pair, then even aces get cracked. Gee golly, jumping Jehoshaphat's, Aces do get cracked! Wow, the average hand must be better than a single pair.

So, knowing that, and knowing that the bell curve will still include a lot of Ace high hands in the main sequence, but that dead average is better than a pair of Q's (if all the cards are seen), well, we all got some thinking to do.

The power of the big pair gets cut short if the turn is seen. This is the logic behind the humongous bets by either good players frustrated with bad beats or bad players wanting it all. Once you decide on a fancy play, leaving any room at all for a villain to maneuver, you need to understand that not all fancy plays work as expected.

All this explaining could have just been said 'UL".

But I'm prepping for the drunkathon and am just about to hit the starting gates.