Can't lay down the big pocket pair

One of the worsts of my post flop play is my inability to make myself lay down AA and KK when I know there's a good chance I am beat.

Today I opened raise 4bb (20c) from MP with KK only to be reraised by BB to 70c. I thought about shoving it all in but decided to just call with position. Flop's 3QJ with 2 diamonds. He leads out with 50c. My gut says he hit a set. I put him on QQ. But I called anyway. Turn is some low diamond card, giving me a flush draw as I had Kd. He bets $1.10 into a $2.50 pot. I decided to call but no diamond hits. He bets $1 into a $4.70 pot, and I called again knowing that I was likely beat. (He had JJ)

Then a later hand, I hit a set of 8s on the turn on a A758 board (both had checked preflop and on the flop. He was BB, I had position). He checked the turn and when I raised he min. reraised me, which got me suspicious that he might have hit a straight, so even though I thought about shipping it there, the way he checked raised made me just call. The river is a 9. He immediately shoves it, a little more than pot sized, so I folded given how he played the turn. He then shows me A7, which I certainly didn't put him on the way the hand played out. I got scared off.

Folded the one I should have called, and called the one I should have folded.

Still won more than 2 buyins on the day, but these 2 hands made me shake my head at myself. Just not improving in these kinds of hands.

1) 4-bet when you have kings, because your opponents suck and will call you.
2) Don't fold sets.

I have been there...Very hard to lay down the best starting hand , but as you learn to , it will make you a better player. good luck at the tables

Both of these hands sound like you are being very passive. When you get 3 bet pre flop with pocket kings you don't have to ship it right there, just raise him again, thus getting more information from him.

So you get pocket 8's, by limping pre flop and checking the turn it sounds like you are playing them purely for set mining. You hit your set on the turn but don't want to get it all in?

I posted some hands in a thread a while ago and FP pointed out that I was being very passive and gave me something to try out while I play. I am doing this and feel it is helping me to get a little more aggressive in the right spots. Check it out at - I been making mistakes

With 88 I was early to act preflop so I just limped in. I just didn’t even consider that he had two pairs (since he checked twice on the flop and turn) and would be insta-shoving like that with 4 cards to a straight on the table. In past experience with similar sequence of events, the other hand usually had a straight in that situation. He hadn’t seemed that aggressive in the hands before, so I gave him too much credit.

when I have pocket aces or kings I just go all in to kill the players on the board. other pairs like queens or jack are hard to play. I remember playing with pocket jacks and on the flop it a set, I push for a all in and only one peron called. Guess what he had he to hit a set, he had pocket king and hit a set as well. I was dead with no hope in that.

Shoving all-in preflop everytime with AA or KK is not the answer...

but yes....you should 4bet those kings unless you're in position and have some reads on villan that he is aggressive. Even then a 4bet might be the best line. Its situation dependant....as is everything in poker.

my strategy for those monster hand is half of my stack preflop to all in, if someone re-raise.
That way I am not so sad if I got bad beat .....

but that's just me and my $.02

It's hard to fold the best hand pre flop. You need to more aggressive sounds like your playing it safe since you got your kings cracked and don't play your sets like its just a pair let alone fold. If you were more aggressive with your 8's I don't think you would be in that mess and not know where you were at in the hand IMO.

I was there this weekend and it led me to lose the hand. Pocket AA is very hard to lay down.

My biggest problem with pocket king is that I always have in my mind how to extract the most amount of chips from my opponents. So many times I don't bet high enough, hoping to get a call. Then when I get a call an ace seems to always come out causing me to lose the hand. I usually never consider pushing all-in preflop wanting to obtain more chips from my opponents. many times to my own demise.

1) Don't put people on individual hands, put them on ranges of hands. There's on way you could feasibly put villain squarely on QQ given a pf min 3-bet and continuation bet.

2) Don't fold sets, don't open-limp 88. Openraising is fine, limping behind other limper(s) is fine, openfolding from EP is fine, but as a general rule of thumb you can't go far wrong not open-limping with anything ever.

Also don't be results-oriented. Sometimes you will correctly fold hands you would have won with, and vice versa (not saying that these are examples of this, but the tone of your post indicates a little results-oriented thinking). When you deal with ranges of hands, sometimes you will be wrong as the ideal actions if villain has a hand in the top 10% of his range will invariably differ greatly from those if he has something in the bottom 10%.

Folding the best hand is never easy but trust your instincts they will usually be right in most situations.

i like to play slow when i have AA or KK,instead,i will all in WHEN i have the QQ or JJ,i think QQ or JJ can bring me good luck ,but AA or KK i lost with that many times.

There ya go.

I try to keep my preflop bets consistent. If reraised preflop, then I may ship it with AA or KK, even other PPs. I don't see the point of shoving right out of the gate. On the flop with KK, if there is no A, I will reraise any bet for value -- and see how much the other guy likes his hand. If he loves loves loves it, I'm outta there. Well, sometimes. It depends.

As to the set on the turn, that's the time to play hard. Pot-size bet at the least, and if reraised, shove. If it doesn't pan out, so be it. But often enough, it will hold up. Don't sweat the other times. (Hard, I know.) Sets are, often, money in the bank -- and when they are not, well, there will be other times.

Why are we not 4-betting preflop with KK?

I also found it hard to lay down the big pocket pair when I first started playing, but the more that I play the easier it becomes. You just have to say to yourself, if I call I'm just giving away more chips, just because you have a good starter hand, doesn't mean if you know your beat you shouldn't fold it.

i would have been more aggressive with both hands and i would have move all in both situations, i might have lost the KK vs JJ hand but i would have won the other one. you played very passive and thus lost both hands.