Originally Posted by Lithium

IMHO, the first hand was played correctly, except for the initial postflop bet. The flop showed a diamond draw, and your $20 bet gave anyone on that draw good pot odds. If it was me, I would have bet at least the pot, if not shoving all-in.

Originally Posted by pokerroomace

i disagree with the other comments and how the hands are played.

1st hand - i think you should raise pf.
as played, i think calling the raise behind is fine.
on the flop: you should either check and then checkraise aggressively if someone behind bets. your aim is to get all your money into the pot by the river in this hand. you have a very big hand.
if you do decide to bet yourself, you should bet $45-$70. a $20 bet is not going to grow the pot, and if anything your bet will act as a blocking bet and stop the pot growing. if you think your weak bet will induce a raise (as it did), then it's not the worst play. but there's a good chance he would have raised if you bet $50 - especially if he has a big pair.
by making such small bets you could him so much room to get away from it. if you bet pot on all 3 streets it's hard for to fold a big pair since he doesn't have that much information and you could have a hand like TPTK or a draw.
when he then does raise you. i think you should raise a lot more than $60. there's $187 in the pot at this point. raise between $100 and $150. this will build the pot and give you the chance to get all your chips in. you could also just flat call his raise and then hope to checkraise him on a safe turn, but this means giving up on an opportunity to build the pot.

I think Lithium's advice on shoving allin on the flop is awful. You have a monster hand and he'd have to be quite a bad player to call a $650+ bet into a $67 pot. A TAGG will not call this bet with AA (unless he has seen you bluff like this before and/or you have a mega loose/maniac/idiot image and then he still might fold). you lose way too much value by shoving on the flop straight away.

you turn bet is good. it's a $200 into a $300 pot. it's not so likely villain will bet the turn if check the turn, because your reraise on the flop.

Originally Posted by pokerroomace

i disagree with the other comments and how the hands are played.

on the flop: you should either check and then checkraise aggressively if someone behind bets. your aim is to get all your money into the pot by the river in this hand. you have a very big hand.

I think Lithium's advice on shoving allin on the flop is awful. You have a monster hand and he'd have to be quite a bad player to call a $650+ bet into a $67 pot. A TAGG will not call this bet with AA (unless he has seen you bluff like this before and/or you have a mega loose/maniac/idiot image and then he still might fold). you lose way too much value by shoving on the flop straight away.