[sweetjazz]

I struggle with this too. And often I try to base my decision on something specific about the player involved that makes me think one line is better than the other.

But I would point that, as far as shania goes, if it's a close decision here, I think raising and calling down is best. (I prefer on the turn than the river, as villain may fold to the river raise with just one pair, but will almost always call the turn trying to catch and then call the river too "keep you honest". This happens more often than having villain just call the river with a hand like two pair that you beat that he would have capped the turn with.) The reason it is good is that it increases the chance you will get action when you have a strong hand (like JJ or QQ on this board). Of course, you're going to have these marginal one pair hands more often than top two/set/nut flush/nut straight type hands, but if we're assuming it's close, then we want people to (1) fear check-raising us light and (2) perhaps overplay their moderately strong hands when we have a strong hand.

One other consideration...would villain ALWAYS check-raise with a J or a Q here? If so, then you must 3-bet as single pair hands are mathematically much more likely than two pair or better hands. It's tricker if the opponent is a bit thinking and only sometimes raises his one pair and draw hands, as it's hard to tell how often he is doing so without a ton of data and going through it pretty thoroughly.

Finally, as regards AA vs. AQ, you're ahead about the same amount here as KK is a miniscule possibility. So the only thing that changes is calculating redraw possibilities versus the possible two pair hands of villain. That's pretty easy to work out and makes AA a bit stronger than AQ.