Protecting yourself with big starting hands

[IgorSmiles]

I'm looking for some advice on staying out of trouble early and mid tournament when I pick up a big pair. As we all know, they dont always hold up and when they dont, they seem to bust me out. Here's two examples:

Fairly early in tourney and I am above average chip count. My table is playing very loose. I pick up pocket Aces. I make standard raise, 3X big blind and BB calls. Heads up flop comes K/9/5 rainbow. Seems perfect, He checks, I bet and he calls. I figure he hit top pair and I am golden. Turn is a deuce. Seems harmless, He checks, I make potsized bet, he calls. River is another rag again a check and I bet. He puts me all in. I've put most of my stack in at this point and plus, I saw this guy try to bully another player out earlier, so I feel compelled to call, even though it feels ominous. He turns over K/2 for a busted ass two pair and I am done. Where did I go wrong?

2nd example:

I pick up Kings in mid position. Girl to my right has stayed in to big raises with gutshot and hit, and with a 9 hi flush draw and hit, so I've got her marked as questionable. Two limpers, then she makes 3X BB raise. I go all in hoping to take it down but figuring if she calls I'm good too. Table folds, she calls and turns up Aces. Her aces hold up and I am done. For the record, flop was Q/9/3 so even if I just called, it would have been tough to get away from that flop.

Any opinions and advice is appreciated.

[Bigwig]

On the first hand, I would check on the river. You bet before the flop, after the flop, on the turn and were called at every stage. I say, uh-oh. Remember what Sklansky said about not making a bet where you don't want reraised. This is a perfect case.

On the second example, you're going to get a visit from the Bad Beat Police. Unless the stack sizes are sufficiently huge (an almost never in online tourneys or local/casino low level buy-ins) you cannot fold KK preflop. Ever. She had A's. It happens.

[Steve Chase]

I would check on the river too.
But if he bet big on the river. It will be a tough decision to fold.

This is just poker. Things like this happen. It happened to me many times. I may not change the way I play because of such bad luck.

[Roman]

please dont post your bad beat stories in disguise here.

PS: I also check behind river almost always unless my opponent complete maniac.

[nolanfan34]

In the first hand, you didn't mention whether there were already limpers in the pot or not. If there were, I like to make my raise a little bigger than 3x BB. If you don't, you're only asking the blinds to come along if they think there's going to be a big multiway pot. I usually add an extra BB to my raise for each limper in, like if the blinds are 25/50 and there's two limpers to me, I'll raise to 250 instead of 150.

And like the others said, check the river. Without any apparent draws, there's a reason he's calling your pot sized bet on the turn.

[IgorSmiles]

Checking the river seems very obvious in retrospect and would have left me hurt but not out of the tourney. He seems weak for playing K/2 (and no, there were no limpers, me and him heads up all the way) but he did out-fox me by smooth calling the turn so I had no idea the deuce helped him and I knew if I checked at any point he would make a play for the pot regardless of what he had.

The Kings hand obviously is a very tough lay down, but in retrospect, even though she made some suspect calls, this was the only preflop raise I can remember her making. It's not impossible to throw away Kings preflop, but obviously, it's pretty close and if she turned up Queens or Jacks I'd feel like a jerkoff. ALso, I could have just called the raise and see what the flop brought. Though I'm not sure it would have saved me.

Roman, come on man, I could do much better than these for bad beat stories. I'm just looking for holes in my game.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks.

[Pepsquad]

There is NO WAY you are getting away from those KK's when the flop comes Q-9-3. That's not a leak...sometimes AA's happen.

[IgorSmiles]

I hear ya Pepsquad, and I dont disagree. I'm just searching for any edge to save me in these spots