One of these cost me money today and the other made me money, and both were pretty much the opposite of what I expected to happen.

Hand 1: I pick up As Kc UTG and raise 3xBB, to $4. As the table is fairly loose, a couple people call behind. The flop comes down all low cards (scattered, not sequential, none higher than a ten) and all spades.

I bet 2/3 of the pot, or $8. Player 2 folds. Player 3 raises to $20. Action is to me again; I have two overcards and the nut flush draw. I have about $70 in chips and the other player has me covered.

As I see it, folding this hand would be fairly stupid. So do I call, hoping for a spade or one of my overs; or raise, repping the made flush and trying to drive out the other player (while relying on my outs if I get called)? And if I raise, how much do I raise?

I'll go ahead and tell you what I did: I just pushed all in. I figured I had probably about 12 live outs and I didn't put the other player on the made flush, so I made the aggressive move. Outcome to follow later.

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Hand 2: I have pocket jacks in the big blind. It folds around to the button, who raises the min, to $2. The small blind calls. I re-raise to $8, and both players call the re-raise.

The flop comes out 567 rainbow. Small blind bets out $25, which is very close to the pot amount. Action is to me. I have a big stack this time, $150, which more than covers both players - the button is short stacked at $40, and small blind has about $120.

Call/raise/fold? If raise, how much? Bear in mind the pot was $25, the first bet is $25 bringing it up to $50, and the short stack is yet to act with only $40 left to his name.

Again here I made the aggressive move, thinking the small blind was on a straight draw with A8, had A7 suited for top pair, or had a lesser overpair like nines or tens. I just went all in, thinking I might get a call from the short stack - as is so often the case - and probably a fold from the initial bettor.