Originally Posted by BoredAtheist
Preflop, I just call against most opponents. Raising here is very hard to balance, and most people only raise in this spot with JJ+ and AK, so you're nearly turning your hand face up, which I think is really bad with so much action left. If villain is very laggy preflop, then raising becomes much better, because then you can raise with suited garbage as well for balance and not be losing so much, since you'll have a lot of fold equity and post-flop deception against a weak range.
If there was a caller between you and villain, then I'd raise preflop here 100% of the time, since I now have squeezes in my range, so a raise gives away much less information.
If I did raise preflop, I would make it a pot-sized raise, which is the sizing I use for all my late position 3-bets. The sizing doesn't really matter much, so long as it's consistent and large enough to have some fold equity (you don't actually want fold equity in this situation, but you need to balance against your suited garbage 3-betting range, which does want fold equity. I sometimes see people min-3betting with their monsters preflop and I think that's pretty bad - they're giving away a ton of information for just a tiny bit of money).
As played, on the flop, I would c-bet 1/3rd of the pot. Why the hell are you potting it here? Unless you have a super maniac image, you do not want to stack off with this hand 140BB deep. You only have one pair. You need to start pot-controlling, right on the flop, because if all the money goes in, you're probably way behind. Bet small to under-rep your hand, so that you're more likely to be ahead when the money does go in. On the flop, you are generally in a way-ahead-way-behind situation against a weak hand, so there is very little to gain from protecting your hand by bombing the hell out of the flop. Villain has all kinds of crappy stuff in his range, like pocket deuces and AJ, and you want to extract money from these hands. That means you want to make a bet that pocket deuces and ace-high might be tempted to call, not a bet that will cause pocket deuces to snap-fold. Why are you so fixated with extracting money from villain when he has exactly QQ-KK? His range is a lot wider than that. And when he does have QQ-KK, betting small will frequently trick villain into raising and taking the lead himself, as he'll think that you're weak, and you can let him do the betting for you.
Your flop bet sizing is by far the biggest screw-up in this hand. Assuming you're like most players, when you pot it here, your hand is literally face up. If you think you play AK or JJ this way, you're probably lying to yourself. The average $5/$10 player is plenty savvy enough to understand this. Villain knows exactly what you have as soon as you bet the flop.
As played, fold to villain's raise on the flop. Your hand is face up. Villain's range is now AA, 77, 6x and combo draws, and that range crushes you. What the hell else would he raise with? YOUR HAND IS FACE UP. He's not going to raise with a naked flush draw here hoping to make you fold, because he knows you have AA, and no one ever folds AA.
