My last 2 hands were 55 and 66

1st hand, 66, I'm in EP

I raised to 3x blind and got one caller in BB

Flop: AA 4

BB bets out 200
I call

Turn: X
Can't remember
BB bets out 400
I fold

Surely he has an Ace , right ?

Is it bad to raise from EP with 66 ?

I had about 3500 chips and blinds were 100/200 so I wanted to steal blinds

I ended up losing 400 on it

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Then I had 55 in EP

I limped in with about 2700 left
Blinds were 150/300

Flop: 8 4 K

BB bets out 1000
I raise all-in

He calls and shows AK

Turn: K
River: X

I'm done.

Situation one with an M (ratio of stack to small blind+big blind + total antes) in excess of 10 you still have room to make some long plays...ie you arent in push mode yet, though you are on the borderline. A limp here and folding without a set should be fine.

In situation 2 with an M of 6 you are now in push mode with any hand if you are first in, and pushing with any otherwise playable hand, though it probably makes no difference. The limp from AK is unusual and it may have something to do with stack sizes that you arent telling us, but most likely he's calling and youre done, but push here. You need to put maximum pressure on marginal hands, and you got in as a small favorite.

As it was played the combination of a preflop limp and then a 1000 lead with a K on the board is awfully suspicious. There are two overcards to your pair which means you are behind to a random hand more than 50% of the time (though the lack of a raise preflop would probably lead me to believe I was behind somewhat less than 50% of the time). A fold here isnt out of the question, though making a stand is probably still the play preferred by most. If BB has been a very tight player who never raises out of the blinds then a fold to the 1000 becomes even more palatable.

With the 6s, why didn't you reraise the flop? You raised pre-flop, and he just called from the BB. It's kind of doubtful that the BB had AK or even AQ, since he didn't reraise pre-flop, so he would have to be worried that you had him outkicked. Plus I would think that if he was really strong he would've checked to you, counting on you to bet since you were the pre-flop raiser. If you had reraised, there are a couple of options:

1) he has the ace, with a good kicker: he either calls or reraise right back. You know you're beat, and don't lose any more money

2) he has the ace but a poor kicker: tough for him to call, especially since you showed strength both pre and post-flop.

3) he doesn't have the ace: he has to fold.

The way he played it makes me think he had a pocket pair, and while he was probably beating you, he would've had to give you credit for the ace.

BB doesmt have to have had a weak A to not reraise pre-flop, not wanting to commit a lot of chips out of position until he sees the flop. He is against an early position raiser which puts him behind (in his view) to pocket pairs from 7s to As (48 hands) , and dominating AQ, maybe AJ, maybe KQ (36 hands at most) unless he has reason to believe EP could be raising with suited connectors to mix things up...which he would discount substantially. Even if he has a weak A, when a pair of As flop he is going to recognize all of the other possible hands you could have had for your raise that outnumber you holding the case A, and isnt going to fold it.

Also, as you point out, he may have pockets himself, most of which beat your 66s, the presence of AAs on board again promote the value of those because you have so many more possible holdings that dont include an A than those that do.

Hi . Thanks guys. You wrote a lot so I'm trying to figure it all out.

Ok, so you have no problem with me raising preflop with 66 ? On flop of AA 4 or whatever, you think I should have raised on flop ? He's most likely putting me on A J , AK, or AQ so the fact that he would bet there tells me that he isn't worried about any one of those hands because he probably has the Ace !!

Those were my thoughts so I just called to see if he would fire again since I would likely just call on flop if I had trip aces . So I folded when he fired again since he would certainly be worried on the turn whether I really did have the ace. He didn't seem like a maniac to me so I gave him credit for the better hand.

The 55 hand. I actually think I raised that hand, too. Sorry. I think I raised to $600 and got raised back another $300 and called . Or maybe he just called. I know I had about 2100 or so when I saw the flop. I hate how I played those hands, though. Small pocket pairs are a leak for me right now.

One thing that would be helpful is if you could include the suits of the cards. On the 55 hand, was there a flush draw on the board? Either way, I think I would have folded the 5s to the 1000 bet. Even if he's bluffing and he just has two overcards to your 5s, that's still 6 outs for him on the turn and river. Yeah, you're short stacked, but you still have enough at 2100 where a double up with slightly better cards would get you back into position to put up a fight. If you'd been acting first, then definitely push, but seeing that 1k bet....that's a tough decision to make.