Yes, I agree that I should have made a smaller bet when I flopped the set of 6’s, though I did hope that my pot-size bet would be taken as a bluff if anyone had a pair of jacks.
Since I often bet the pot on the flop, opponents will obviously know that some of my bets are suspect, but many players will still call the bets with draws for which they do not have the pot odds. In the second hand I agree that I might as well have shoved, but it was just laziness, and I will often click the pot button because it is easier and quicker than entering a number and larger than the half pot button. In addition, if you type in a bet size, sometimes the bet does not “take” and nothing happens when you hit the return key and you are left without about a second to either quickly click an instabet button, or you will be automatically checked or folded out.
On raising three BB on most preflop raises, I find it works for me, and the same applies. With a raise of 2BB many players will call with a very wide range, especially in the BB. With a raise of 3BB, speculative calls are less frequent. Since I tend to consistently, but not always, raise 3BB, opponents cannot make inferences about my hand by the size of the raise.
I fully acknowledge that these tactics that might work quite well in the 250,000 buy-in games, but less well against more devious players.
However, I return to the point. In these game, If you raise 3BB with (whatever) and get a call only from the BB and the flop comes Ace high, how often will the BB not lead out with an Ace in their hand? Possibly if they have two pairs, they will check raise, but that is only a 2% chance. They may also have a flop or flush draw. These kind of hands are the absolute bread and butter of tournament poker, play, the ones that keep you in the running while you wait for a better hand, because winning at poker has a lot to do with winning hands where you have a worse hand than your opponent(s).
Because so many players are speculators, you need to make large continuation bets so that they have to decide whether to put their whole tournament as risk by calling speculatively, or to fold and wait for a better hand.
Also an interesting point is that if you have an unpaired Ace, there is only a 20% chance of flopping a pair of Aces, but if there is an Ace on the flop, the chance of the BB holding an Ace when you do not hold an ace is reduced to about 12% due to the blocker effect. In the event of you having an Ace, and an Ace appearing on the flop, the probability of opponent having a better Ace will depend on your kicker card, but are generally not high, However, when you have a pair of Aces and are outkicked, the results will not be pretty.