I've recently been knocked out of three SNGs when I held trips.

One of the first hands, there's a small raise from early position and a caller, I have AKo on the CO and re-raise 3x that. He calls. The flop is AA8 and he checks. I check behind thinking he's very unlikely to catch up and might take a stab at the pot. Turn is a 7 and he puts in a half-pot bet. River is a 3 and he goes all-in. Lacking a read, it's really hard to give up trip aces with best kicker. He probably figured I had the ace. The only hands I beat were other AX hands. I know you already know the results and all - but are there times when you would fold trip aces like this early on?

I have Q6 in the BB and get the BB special 665 flop. Three others are in the pot. I check, MP bets half-pot, BTN calls, SB folds, I call. The turn is a 7 and puts a flush draw out there. I lead out fearing it will get checked around and I'll give a free draw. BTN calls. The river is a 2, and I don't even have enough chips to make a pot bet. There's very few hands that beat me, so I push all-in and am called. I cannot imagine check-folding that river. That'd be like folding bottom set fearing you're against top set. Right?

The other one was heads-up. I hit my trips but it gave him his flush.

Don't question yourself, not much you can do.

I almost always lead out when I have hit big even if it may look scary for my opponents.
It happened too many times that I have let someone catch a two outer for free or practically for free.
And often they don't believe you for the trips and still call the half pot bet.
You can't fold these hands in a stng. You have got to take advantage when you hit big. the +EV will make you money in the long run.

Nothing new.

Hard to really accept it, but...that's poker. If it weren't for luck, no fish would play. Take enough beats, they become no big deal. If you're a good player, you'll take far more than you give. That's good. In the long run, you will win. Period. So, it's not that bad, all things considered.

(At some point, however, you will learn that you can actually lay down the winning hand and feel good about it. That, however, does take a long time, indeed.)

EDIT: Recently, I read a quote from Daniel Negreanu: If you don't occasionally lay down the winning hand, you just aren't trying hard enough to play winning poker.

There is a huge amount of stuff in that quote to really understand. Something to think about.

CJ