[BigDan9]

I appreciate that you kind of knew you were going to get some $hit for the PF raise, but that's precisely what landed you with a more difficult decision on the flop (that and the small bet on the flop).

It's really important (90% of the time) to get the chips in PF when you're sitting on AA & KK and ESPECIALLY when you're oop. And that doesn't mean a min re-raise, it means re-raising properly (probably to around $4 in this case, I would say). Others have explained why the first is bad, the second is good.

Playing oop is always harder and it's really not a disaster if, sitting in the blinds on a big hand like AA or KK, you put in a big raise (against several limpers) or a big re-raise and take down the pot PF. It's much, much better than getting stacked because you can't get away from your hand against a set or TTP or whatever. And if somebody does call a big re-raise with a crappy pocket pair or SCs and hit a set or a big draw, at least you gave them poor odds to try and do that, hopefully making it a -EV play for them.

Obviously, being tricksy is important once in a while (eg flat calling pf in this situation) but, particularly at small stakes online, I just don't think many players that observant/good enough to make that a particularly good strategy.

I would have made something close to a PSB on the flop (probably $3.75) then reluctantly shoved in response to a re-raise and then wished I'd raised much more pf when he shows you A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]