Pocket Kings

Is anyone out there able to get away from this hands pre-flop? Being a multi-tabler, I run into the AA-KK matchup all in before the flop. . I was thinking of starting to only call a reraise preflop instead of coming over the top again. This hand has ruined many of my sessions, and I am looking for a way to lose less when I run into this situation.

Thanks!

Don't worry about that kind of stuff, just go broke like the rest of us and shake his hand, or spike a king on the flop, either way ..

Low stakes games you should NEVER fold this preflop, and never fail to get all of your money in preflop if someone is playing back at you...especially if you're mult-tabling with no reads on players.

People go over the top with 77-QQ, AK, AQ, and AJ at lower limits sometimes. Just get it all in, and if you're up against aces? Well, your aces will run into KK as well so it'll even up.

I wouldn't worry about it until you've hit the higher limits and we're talking about losing serious cash with KK all-in preflop.

I wouldn't worry about it until you've hit the higher limits and we're talking about losing serious cash with KK all-in preflop.

Ok, tell me where to fold:

** Game ID 639538392 starting - 2006-01-08 02:48:32
** Beast of Burden [Hold 'em] (1.00|2.00 No Limit - Cash Game) Real Money

- mainv sitting in seat 1 with $76.65 [Dealer]
- Thrane sitting in seat 2 with $410.95
- johnny291281 sitting in seat 3 with $206.80
- CitizenRob sitting in seat 4 with $214.70
- WeezerMoo sitting in seat 5 with $17.00
- CarterBTD sitting in seat 6 with $281.20
- Loulu sitting in seat 7 with $359.10
- Muzzi sitting in seat 8 with $174.55
- uzjedi sitting in seat 10 with $17.00

Thrane posted the small blind - $1.00
johnny291281 posted the big blind - $2.00
** Dealing card to johnny291281: King of Spades, King of Hearts
CitizenRob folded
WeezerMoo folded
CarterBTD folded
Loulu folded
Muzzi folded
uzjedi folded
mainv called - $2.00
Thrane raised - $6.00
johnny291281 raised - $17.00
mainv folded
Thrane called - $17.00

** Dealing the flop: 9 of Hearts, 2 of Clubs, 5 of Hearts
Thrane checked
johnny291281 bet - $20.00
Thrane raised - $50.00
johnny291281 raised - $100.00
Thrane went all-in - $344.95
johnny291281 went all-in - $91.80
Thrane shows: Ace of Clubs, Ace of Spades

** Dealing the turn: Queen of Diamonds

** Dealing the river: 10 of Spades
Thrane wins $416.60 from the main pot

End of game 639538392

Nicely played
Go bust there
Congratulate opp for a good trap with AA. If he reads you for a big pp then you go bust.

KK is next to impossible to fold against AA.

Is there anything wrong with slowing down the action on this pot after flop? I say this for 2 reasons:

1.) Your opponent is betting like he has the Aces
2.) All you really have is an overpair. Do you really want to go all in with an overpair?

I agree that it is hard to laydown Kings, but maybe we could reduce how much we lose in these situations. If you combine that with the +EV you get when you hold AA vs. KK, it seems like it could add plenty to your earnings instead of a long term break even run rate. This is just my out of the box thinking, and it could be completely wrong.

If you reduce how much you lose in this situation, you're going to reduce how much you win in others.

in lower limits you can't tell the difference if the fish have 10/10 or A/A when they push all in. imo.

What he said. I've seen the usual bet/raise/reraise/push/call routine with just about any PPs. The best example I can think of is 77 vs JJ. I folded my TT in the middle of that one.

Can somone find one of these threads that doesn't suck so I can sticky it and be done with this subject?

Originally Posted by Fnord

Can somone find one of these threads that doesn't suck so I can sticky it and be done with this subject?

I've read them all. What you are looking for doesn't exist...

These threads have to suck for one reason: people spend SO much time and energy on this particular scenario that comes up so rarely. Here's a few quick, fuzzy math calculations. Assume full table...

Hero gets KK on average 1/221 hands. Hero will get KK and any villain at the table will get AA about 1/5000 hands.

Over 100,000 hands, this situation will come up for you on average about 20 times. For simplicity's sake, assume that the two if you eventually get it all-in on these hands every single time. You should win about 4 and lose about 16 of these.

Over 100k hands, you dropped 12 buyins on specific KK v AA scenarios at a full handed table. You made much more then this vs QQ/JJ/AK etc.

Very broad, but definately needed to be said.

A better way to make money would be to fold flush draws when you don't have the right odds, stop calling raises with KQo out of the BB, take down the pot when somebody is blatantly giving it to you... I could go on and on...

The subject of KK v AA scenarios gets old very quickly.

Sure, you can get away from it Lodogg by just flat calling the reraise and proceeding carefully postflop.

By the way luckie, you said Hero gets KK on average 1/221 hands. Hero will get KK and any villain at the table will get AA about 1/5000 hands. That is mistaken, but close. It's Hero gets KK 1/221. Of those times, the odds of someone else at the table having AA are about 21.8 to 1 against. When you combine those odds, you'll see that on average the situation comes up about 1 in 5000 times in your hand history. But at the table, it's not 1/5000 they have AA when you have KK, its more like 4.5 percent of the time.

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by Fnord

Can somone find one of these threads that doesn't suck so I can sticky it and be done with this subject?

I've read them all. What you are looking for doesn't exist...

I'm thinking of writing up a sticky with a list of dead horse threads aka "Fnord's guide to not posting your inane crap."

Highlights:
AA vs KK pre-flop
How to win the max with quads
Calling raises to hit a set

Anything else I'm missing?

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by Fnord

Can somone find one of these threads that doesn't suck so I can sticky it and be done with this subject?

I've read them all. What you are looking for doesn't exist...

I'm thinking of writing up a sticky with a list of dead horse threads aka "Fnord's guide to not posting your inane crap."

Highlights:
AA vs KK pre-flop
How to win the max with quads
Calling raises to hit a set

Anything else I'm missing?

I'm sure there are other things....but that looks like a good start to me.

They may be boring threads to people who have been here a while, but some of us are new here and want to hear others opinions on poker. All I have seen from FNORD so far is smart ass comments. Sorry if we aren't as advanced as you. Are you here to help other players with less talent develop as this site advertises, or are you all about trying to make other people feel stupid?

Originally Posted by Lodogg

They may be boring threads to people who have been here a while, but some of us are new here and want to hear others opinions on poker.

Exactly why I'm trying to make a sticky. At some point the more seasoned posters ran into these problems, had meaningful debate and ceased to burn brain cells on these topics. Since using the search function to dig up these nuggets of poker wisdom seems too much to ask...

Originally Posted by Lodogg

All I have seen from FNORD so far is smart ass comments.

I'll be the first to admit my signal/noise ratio is less than amazing and I'm far from the best player on the board by any measure, but if you honestly beleive this you've missing out and a poor judge of good advice. Figuring out who's full of shit and why winning players do the things we do is part of the path to scoring more points playing poker.

Consider that part of what makes this board fairly good is that people posting horrible advice are quite often called on it.

Well as a piece of advice...If you see someone make a post that you don't agree with, try posting a convincing counter-argument instead of non-productive negative one liners. Everyone plays poker differently. I like it here and have received a tremendous amount of advice that has excelled my win rate, but we could all do without the negative energy. We should be here to build each other skills and bankrolls. Ok...I'm off my soap box now.

Originally Posted by Ultimate George

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by Fnord

Can somone find one of these threads that doesn't suck so I can sticky it and be done with this subject?

I've read them all. What you are looking for doesn't exist...

I'm thinking of writing up a sticky with a list of dead horse threads aka "Fnord's guide to not posting your inane crap."

Highlights:
AA vs KK pre-flop
How to win the max with quads
Calling raises to hit a set

Anything else I'm missing?

I'm sure there are other things....but that looks like a good start to me.

How to deal with the AI overbet when you only have 2 pair or less.

going broke with set over set

Originally Posted by DaNutsInYoEye

Originally Posted by Fnord

I'm thinking of writing up a sticky with a list of dead horse threads aka "Fnord's guide to not posting your inane crap."

Highlights:
AA vs KK pre-flop
How to win the max with quads
Calling raises to hit a set

Anything else I'm missing?

How to deal with the AI overbet when you only have 2 pair or less.

Interesting addition. Not as much history there though.

Originally Posted by nnylix

Sure, you can get away from it Lodogg by just flat calling the reraise and proceeding carefully postflop.

By the way luckie, you said Hero gets KK on average 1/221 hands. Hero will get KK and any villain at the table will get AA about 1/5000 hands. That is mistaken, but close. It's Hero gets KK 1/221. Of those times, the odds of someone else at the table having AA are about 21.8 to 1 against. When you combine those odds, you'll see that on average the situation comes up about 1 in 5000 times in your hand history. But at the table, it's not 1/5000 they have AA when you have KK, its more like 4.5 percent of the time.

I understand this. I'll take that further.. facing heavy preflop action holding KK, it's much more likely then ~4.5% to be up against AA. The point I was trying to make was that, the situation of you holding KK AND somebody else having AA is very rare, and people would do much better spending their time and energy improving their games in other ways.

I've folded AA and KK both preflop once. In a satellite qualifier with 6 left, top 5 got same prize. Chip leader had me covered, but both of us were way out in front. He pushes. I have AA in the BB and muck.

NL200 on pacific. I'm sitting with $750ish and somebody directly across from me is sitting with > $1,000. We've been playing pretty much all day with each other, and I havn't seen him 2-bet anything preflop in hours. Both of us were playing very tight. I put in a 4x raise with KK, he makes it 10x total, I make it 30x, he pushes, I muck. I probably could have just called the reraise, but stacks were so deep I wanted to know if I was beat. Later I doubled up off him in a set over set in the biggest pot of my life.. about $1,400. Q97 flop QQ over 99

Personally though, I don't feel you should ever fold KK preflop barring deep stacks and/or great read on somebody. This applies against a tight, competent player, but I also don't like playing them in a way that only AA will play with you. Usually this means a huge 3-bet preflop, although I still do that some of the time, and against anyone I think might take it to the felt with AK/QQ/JJ. This has been a pretty recent change in thinking for me, and it seems to be doing pretty well.

Fnord, you might want to add "omg I raised with AK but didnt hit this happens to me a lot should I stop riaisng lol?"

Originally Posted by Alibi

Fnord, you might want to add "omg I raised with AK but didnt hit this happens to me a lot should I stop riaisng lol?"

I'm ashamed for missing that classic.

Originally Posted by Alibi

Fnord, you might want to add "omg I raised with AK but didnt hit this happens to me a lot should I stop riaisng lol?"

Even better, "My aces got cracked again when all the money in went preflop, should I just call and take a flop instead?"

Hi Lukie, you missed my point on the odds of someone having AA. Read this article on the precise odds of someone having any pocket pair of higher rank in a 10 handed game: http://www.math.sfu.ca/~alspach/mag88/

It's written by Dr. Brian Alspach, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, Simon Fraser University.

The 4.5% i was referring to was rounded off. The odds are .0439 that at the 10 handed table, when you have KK, 1 person has AA or two people have have AA.

Originally Posted by nnylix

Hi Lukie, you missed my point on the odds of someone having AA. Read this article on the precise odds of someone having any pocket pair of higher rank in a 10 handed game: http://www.math.sfu.ca/~alspach/mag88/

It's written by Dr. Brian Alspach, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, Simon Fraser University.

The 4.5% i was referring to was rounded off. The odds are .0439 that at the 10 handed table, when you have KK, 1 person has AA or two people have have AA.

I assure you I entirely understood your point.

For the record, .0439 would not be odds...

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by Fnord

Can somone find one of these threads that doesn't suck so I can sticky it and be done with this subject?

I've read them all. What you are looking for doesn't exist...

I'm thinking of writing up a sticky with a list of dead horse threads aka "Fnord's guide to not posting your inane crap."

Highlights:
AA vs KK pre-flop
How to win the max with quads
Calling raises to hit a set

Anything else I'm missing?

Why do people min-bet?

Fnord, some more for your list.

"I am ALWAYS getting my money in with the best hand and I get outdrawn ALL THE TIME. I am doing NOTHING wrong but I am on a 4 month downswing"

and

"How to beat a table full of call-happy fish" "the players at the xxx site at the yyy stakes are SO bad that I cant beat them cause they call all the time and ALWAYS outdraw me"

you can even add the classic "how to beat my home game" thread.

Btw on the KK hand I dont think that you can fold at any point.
Just a note though. Do you have any info on him? Is he willing to play for stacks with QQ/JJ after being re-raised? Moreso after being 3 bet on the flop?
When he pushes (after you 3 bet him on the flop) I would assume that I am beat. Having to call $90 for almost $350 though you cant really fold unless you are 100% sure you are drawing to 2 outs.
If you add 99 to his raising range there things could change though.

At the risk of getting lynched, it is quite possible to fold kings preflop. Not often, but sometimes people are kind enough to make it obvious for you.

Having played on several sites at $100/$200 tables, it becomes noticable that each site has it's own 'culture', and a big preflop raise amount often becomes fairly standard. Obviously, this varies from player to player, site to site, and session to session, but regardless, people make it clear what range of cards their hand is in the majority of the time at these levels.

With this in mind, coming over the top of a 'standard' big raise is often enough to give you the information you need. A substantial reraise back at you is enough for me to think about folding, especially with a good read. No matter what peoples opinions of these stakes players, few people will come back over the top of a reraise with AK, QQ or worse, in my experience.

If they choose to trap, then at least you get to see a flop, a K means you're getting paid, and the A makes it that much easier to lay down.

Anyway, the main point i'm trying to make is to take into account the culture of the site. I've played on $25 tables where people will not come over the top of a reraise with anything but aces, and i've played $400 tables where anything suited is good enough. Making the statement that anywhere 'low stakes' you should just get your money in is somewhat simplistic for me. Depends on the culture and your read.

On topic I just think that it is possible to fold KK preflop but only in VERY specific, VERY rare situations. I've done it once in 100,000 hands. That one time turned out to be a good laydown (I was shown AA) but that was it, just once. I've also lost my fair share of stacks to AA when I didn't fold my Kings preflop and I don't regret it one bit. The value I get from people pushing hands like AK and QQ into my kings makes up for the times I losse to AA, if I start folding KK left, right and centre then I'm gonna loose out on this value and that costs me money. Thats the reason every one says "Don't fold KK preflop" and they're right.

So for all the noobs out there who loose sleep over this subject stop worrying. Yes it is possible to successfully fold KK preflop, once every 100,000 hands. Guess how much it saved me over those 100,000 hands: about .0003ptBB per hand. Not much is it. If you want to learn something, learn to fold AA to a set on the flop (Now that move is valuable) and worry about the KK conundrum again when you start playing 400nl.

At low stakes, trying to fold KK to AA preflop WILL COST YOU MONEY.

Learn to suckout and it will do wonders for your win-rate...

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ic.php?t=26921

BTW: I've had KK run into AA 4 times in the last 2 weeks online and twice in the same weekend dinking around at 3/6 with my old man. I'm overall up in both games.

This is would be an example of one of the only times I could fold KK preflop, in a live big buyin tournament with a slow structure and a ton of chips.

Player A: AA
Player B: KK

Both players had a little more than $30,000 in chips (they started the event with $30,000), and the blinds were $50-$100. Player A raised from under the gun to $300, Player B reraised to $900 from second position, and everyone else folded. Player A reraised again to $3,000, and Player B reraised to $10,000. Player A moved all in for another $20,000, and Player B called instantly.

Analysis: Note: If there is ever a time to lay down K-K before the flop, this is it. Player A opened with a raise from under the gun, reraised, and then moved in. Player A had to have A-A or K-K (most likely A-A), and he showed his strength three times. It is not fun to lay down K-K, but sometimes you have to do it. Player B still would have had $20,000 in chips, based on the slow structure of the tournament.

Originally Posted by Rondavu

KK is next to impossible to fold against AA.

True story.

I have $460, Villain has $500.

Preflop. He limps, I raise to $10. He reraises to $30. I re-reraise him to $100 to isolate. He re-re-reraises to $200 total. I go all in for $260 more. He calls.

I have AA. He has KK.

He spikes K on river then has the audacity to say, "I knew you had aces when you went all in."

Dumbass.

Originally Posted by Lodogg

Is anyone out there able to get away from this hands pre-flop? Being a multi-tabler, I run into the AA-KK matchup all in before the flop. . I was thinking of starting to only call a reraise preflop instead of coming over the top again. This hand has ruined many of my sessions, and I am looking for a way to lose less when I run into this situation.

Thanks!

edit - sorry i would only fold in a deep stacks situation vs a tight player. folding it just takes u out of too many winnable pots - espicaially in cash games where alot of gamblers hang out