LC - Help needed to plug my leak (NL10 atm)

[MrBump]

Hi all

I have been looking at my PokerTracker stats and I have identified my biggest leak as losing big pots with just a single pair. Either TPTK or an overpair. I really need to plug this quickly - It's driving me mad.

My main difficulty is knowing when my single pair is good and to go to value town with it, or to slow down and go for pot control.

Last night, for example, in the space of about 10 minutes I had two hands come up.


NL10

First hand: I got dealt AA in the SB. Lots of limpers and then button raised to .50. I made it $2 to go and then potted every street and stacked the villain for about 150 BB

Second hand: I got dealt AKo in ep. I raise to .50 and I get 2 callers (1 shorty and one bigstack with 200 BB). I had 250 BB before the hand started. Flop comes 4, A, T. Shorty makes a ridiculous .10 bet, which the bigstack calls and I bump it to the size of the pot (about $2). Shorty comes over the top all-in for his remaining chips (only about an extra $1) Big stack calls and so do I. Then Big stack took me to value town with $6 on the turn and $6 on the river and showed his set of 4's......

It was strange, cos alarm bells started going off on the flop when bigstack first called the .10 bet and then the check-raise. I even thought to myself " Looks like he has a set" and then went on to click "call" [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

So I won a huge pot with a single pair, and then went on to lose it, with a similar hand.

How do you avoid going broke with one pair ? Are there certain things you look out for ? Do you give it up on the flop ? The turn ? The river ? I don't want to start playing AK for 2 pair value only surely ?!

I'd really appreciate any help you can give me on this. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]