Laydowns

I'm new to online poker and feel as though I've gotten extremely unlucky (examples at the bottom but more of a rant so it can be ignored). However, at the same time, I feel as though I'm not making the correct laydowns. Help on this matter would be appreciated.

I've primarily been playing .05/.10 $3 Cap NL just to make sure I don't lose money too fast (I'm starting out with $50).

Example:
I have JJ and raise 3x bb on the button. One other person calls me. Flop was 10 5 2. They check, I raise half the pot, they call. Turn is a 4. They check, I raise half the pot again, and get called. River is a 7, they raise me like a fifth of the pot. I think about raising but I just call and they show TT.

I figured TT was the only hand that could beat me but I've run into a few similar situations where I force the action, they just call, and then they have the nuts. What do I do in situations like this where it looks like I have the best hand?

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*Rant*
The unluckiness is basically because of the 15 or so hands I've bet into the pot with the maximum ($3 or someone went all in), I've won a total of 3 hands (0 coin flips), and I remember 4 hands where I was way ahead only to lose on the river (and 2-3 more, I just can't remember the hands). I can't see how I possibly do anything different to avoid the loss but if someone see's something, let me know!

Examples (from not so bad to really bad):
1.) Someone raises with 77, I reraise with KK, he goes all in, I call. He flops quads and I lose (just one of those wow quad stories, I don't remember much else)
2.) Player A checks, I have AA and raise 3x bb in late position. Player A calls. Flop was ? 4 7. A raises, I reraise, A goes all in, I call. He shows A7o and spikes a 7 on the turn.
3.) I have AKo on the button and raise 3x bb. Player B is big blind and re raises me 6x bb and I call. Flop is A 7 3. B goes all and I call. B shows AJ and river is a J.
4.) I have J9 in the big blind. Player C raises the minimum in the small blind and I call along with one other person. Flop is Q 8 4. C checks, I raise the minimum trying to steal and C calls (other person folds). Turn is a 10 and C raises the pot, I reraise the pot and C goes all in and I call. He shows Q 8 and hits a Q on the river.

I think you should play your pair more carefully, not only because you might running into a higher pair (which happens about 11 % of the time when you play J-J on a 9-table), but also because of the probability of facing a set. Now, according to basic strategies, I think your first move post-flop is correct. The checking should indicate either a check-raise or weakness. Since the flop is so spread-out, the only possible draw (I assume it's a rainbow board since you haven't written the suits) is an pretty unlikely, open-ended straight draw with 4-3 or some kind of busted straight draw with A-3 or something like that. Due to your pre-flop raise, it should eliminate hands such as small connectors, but some people still play them, especially if they are connected, so I would still expect the risk of my opponent having a straight draw.

But the most important thing to notice here is that your opponent calls your bet on the turn. For that to be profitable in the long-term he or she must have 1/4 chance of winning, and making a straight draw on river is only about 18 % chance, so here I'd firstly bet more on turn to give my opponent really bad pot odds, and secondly I'd check-fold if i got called and didn't hit a set on river.

Thanks for the response.

My thinking was that I would get reraised if they had QQ KK or AA but I guess they could just call to lure me in.

There might have been a flush draw on the turn. That makes a good point about raising more on the turn.

The biggest dilemma I had was on the river because they gave me 5:1 odds and there was a decent chance they could have had something like AT or KT. Obviously, if I knew I was beat, I would let it go but with those odds, I felt I had to at least call. In order to avoid that situation, is checking the turn a possibility?

I'm not an expert so take this with a grain of salt, but these look more like bad beats than bad plays. You can post your hands in the analysis forum for some in depth reviews, but at these limits people will go all in with gutshot draws on the river. You're going to get sucked out and lose good hands, but more often you will win.

Last night I played two SnG's where someone called my all in with a gutshot draw. 9/10 times you are going to double up and forget about it within the hour. Of course you will only remember the 1/10 times you get screwed.

Haha, yeah that's probably true except I kept a close count of all my all in's because I quickly noticed that I was generally doing well except a couple big pots. I've just learned about the hand history option so I'll be able to give more detailed hands when I really need to analyze.

I've started playing limit and it's been great. I still win the same number of hands except the bad hits I take aren't nearly as costly. It's the same hold'em but very different way of playing and probably suits me more. I should probably try pot limit a shot at some point and see how that goes.

They look like simple bad beats to me especially hand 4. You definately couldn't fold your straight to his allin. He just got real lucky on the river. We have all been on both sides of that. According to my odds calculator he only had an 8.7% change of hitting the boat. That means you were a 91.3% favorite to me. I would bet those odds all day.

Just to avoid confusion, I know that the rant parts were bad beats. The biggest problem I have run into is the failure to recognize that I'm beat in a matchup of big hands.

The JJ vs a friendly looking flop at the beginning of this thread is just one example of many where I fail to recognize that I am beat after a harmless flop.

I guess the biggest thing is, how do you recognize that you are beat when you have a relatively strong hand such as with JJ? I know there is no simple answer to this but this is the area in which I need to improve the most so any advice would be appreciated.