PP50NL 6-max, AJ, and variance

[bingledork]

Some more comments:

Hand #1:
I have had a lot of success with the walk-the-dog approach on these types of hands, letting the villian hang himself with a weaker ace. I think raising the flop may be marginally better than calling, but I'm not convinced. His $2 bet was exactly on my call/raise threshold.

I am more interested if anybody pushes on the river....

Hand #2:
I appreciate the "go back to $25" thoughts. I posted this hand because I've never done this before and obviously by itself it looks stupid. It stands in stark contrast to Hand #1 where I called down an opponent who was representing a big hand.

I hadn't seen villian in this hand over-bet the flop before, so it confused me. I understand that players often do this to mean "go away" but I know personally I do it when I have a big hand. I guess my question is which is more likely the case?