The Night of the Pocket Dueces!

I played my weekly poker tournament last night (Halloween) and I kept getting haunted with the (insert scary music here) pocket dueces. These three senarios show that they can make you or break you. This is kind of long so bear with me.
First time I was dealt them, so I raised from $100 to $260. One player called. The flop comes A, K, 7. I check but the player bets $100. I call. The turn is a 2. Now, I'm shortstacked but I have more than the other player has so I figure what a great opportunity to build up my stack. I put the player all in. The player calls. I thinking the player has, at most, AK. I proudly display my set. The player shows me another set. The player had pocket kings. The river didn't give me my other duece so I was even more shortstacked.
Now, I slowly started to gain some of my stack back and I get pocket dueces again! One player raises from $40 to $120. Everyone folds except for me. I call. The flop comes 7, 2, K. I hit my set again. The player bets $1800. I figure I decided to go all in (I only had a $200 left after I called his $1800). He calls. I prayed that he didn't have pocket kings. He only had KQ and I won a big pot.
I'm excited by this point becuase I'm one place away from the final table. I'm dealt K, J. One player raises from $1000 to $2500. Two players call Now, I'm big blind so I call. The flop is 2, J, 3. One player goes all-in. Two of them call, one is all in. Now, it would put me all in if I call and I have top pair. I would win a big pot. I call and show my K, J. Everyone shows their hands. One has J, 10. One has A, Q. The last player has, yep you guessed it, pocket dueces. The turn was a K and the river was an 8. I lost. Remember, when you are dealt pocket dueces and you hit the set. Play cautiously withn them. Even though I won with them, I also lost with them and against them. It was scary. Ironic that it happened on Halloween.

Good thread, the only thing with pocket 2's its that i NEVER call a raise with them. Way to much hassle, very well disguised hand when they hit, but the difference is that they HAVE to hit.

On your first hand when you were shortstacked you called a bet on the flop with nothing. You hit a 2outer ...very very lucky, a better play there if you had to take a stand was to push pre-flop.

Well done on getting so far in your tourney though.

Yeah i had that same issue last night also. And i usually do the same as tenbob with the 2's, i usually never raise them unless there's about 3 ppl in play. I was playing the .50/1 tables for about 45min at titan and fortunetly enough for me i won every hand but 1 that i got with deuces. 3 out of the 4 i hit trips on the flop or the turn so i my luck was good on halloween.

Also i have Never seen so many ppl with pocket A's in my life. i counted 10 ppl that had pocket A's out of 40 hands, and i was not one of them. Unbelivable.
Some strange things were happening last night.

I love the dueces if I can see a flop for cheap. If I am in a late position with no raises, I will probably play them. It is almost impossible to put someone on them.

I hate pocket dueces.. There evil Dont trust them

I'm interested why you decided to raise the first time you were dealt them?

I want to keep as many people in as possible, because if I hit I probably have them beat anyway - like any drawing hand.
I'll call a good raise too, since the monster hands will pay you off very nicely if you hit. Better than the 1 in 8 shot you have of seeing a duck on the flop.