Playing the pocket kings

[Deuce Blue]

This happened in a $11 MTT a few days ago and it got me thinking.

Was dealt pocket Kings. Blinds were at at 100 and 200. I had about 3500 chips. hadn't got anything all game so I wanted to get as many folks out as I could since I had a few limpers in front ( I was in early middle position ) Anyway, I raise it up to like 1300 hundred or so to ( if nothing else ) steal the blinds and get it down to one caller at most. Guy in Next position comes over the top all in, folds back around to me and I call. he flips up pocket queens. I win the hand and double up.

Now what interested me was after the hand he commented that he figured I had a weaker hand because of the bloated pre-flop raise ( putting me on a middle pair or something ). Then told me nice play.

I read in a few articles about the evils of pocket kings and how you really need to scare off as many folks as you can when you have them and I have stopped standard raising with them and have been over betting pre-flop. My win percentage has gone up alot since I started this. Pocket Kings have now turned into one of my favorite hands. Now I will not bet out as much as I did in the above example most times and of course alot of things factor in to the decision on how much, etc. But my question to you all is this...

If you see a bloated pre-flop bet are you generally thinking big pocket pair or something smaller and a blind steal? His comments just made me wonder. Because if alot of people think as this guy did it would seem I might get more callers with dominated hands ( such as this guys Q's or someone with J's ) as opposed to anyone holding A-K.

Of course, if an ace hits on the flop I sometimes end up in a sticky situation but as I said, again alot of things factor into the pre-flop bet. If an Ace hits I ain't married to the Kings and will lay them down.

Just wondering peoples thoughts on this. But as of now I am really loving playing them this way. It makes most of my decisions alot easier. It is usually push or fold after the flop as opposed to standard raising and sometimes playing the hand out to far and losing more money in the long run.

[Ash256]

I really really really strongly suggest you read the SPR section of PNL.

That's what you're getting at, you just don't know it.