KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

This hand came up on Poker Stars nightly 55 k. I was cruising with above average chips (20k av.)with 35k, about 180 left, 153 pays, blinds 500/1000/100. I was UTG and delt KK. I raise to 4000, seat 2 with approx. 30k goes all in, everyone folds back to me. After thinking for about 30 sec., I rule out AA since most everyone wouldve just min raised to clear everyone else out and go HU with me. So now that leaves any other pair and AK, so I call. Seat 2 shows AK and flops gin with an ace and I'm crippled. Now I am struggling that I made the right call for this hand, but was it the right call in the overall scheme of things for tournament poker with my stack and standing in the tourney ? I am strongly leaning towards that I made a Bad Call, since I could've easily folded and still been more than fine. I am trying to improve my game more towards playing flops and less and less and away from "racing" and all-in pre flop. Am I being too hard on myself ? Am I basing this too much on results oriented thinking here ? Or was I a donk and should've insta folded Kings preflop ?

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

you should have easily folded

why put your chips at risk when you're such a marginal favorite?

only get your chips in 95% fav or just blind out

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

Results oriented. If you are sure he doesn't have AA call obv.

Payouts worth getting are at the FT not cashing.

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

I wasn't 100% sure he didn't have aces, but the way he quickly reraised and raised all in when he himself with 30 k in chips was healthy, led me to believe he didn't have aces and wanted me to fold preflop.

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

Ha ha ha, very funny.

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

This isn't a race. Never fold KK preflop, as a general rule.

As another poster pointed out, you want the real money at the top, cashing is meaningless in comparison. Just go to a tourney lobby, and divide the top payout by the first payout. Realize how many times you have to cash to equal one top 3 finish.

Folding KK PF is not a winning strategy.

There are some good threads in the stickies regarding passing up edges. And check out Bond18's series 'Things It Took Me A While To Learn.' There's one in there about misconceptions, and it deals with ideas of a "tournament life," "better spots," etc.

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

yeah yeah yeah..... KK in this spot should be considered a medium pair and the AK push is how they teach you to play it in sklansky's TPFAP book..... i thought AK before i got that far in the reading of your post. i'd fold and show my KK and be happy that i have over 13M left and can still make some moves....

i've been wondering how to deal w/ this situation myself in the "land of make believe" and not stacking myself w/ something overplayed that I could have got away from. (read my series on pushing AK vs pushing or small raising it)

u're only a 2/1 favorite against ace anything ... do the math...500+1000+10(100 antes) = 2500... your 4000 and his 4000 = 10500...+ 26000 more = 36k... you have to call 28k into this... it's barely over 1.2:1..... EASYYYY FOLD... and show him your hand so he knows u aren't messing around UTG. I've pushed w/ this at times in spots like this and even A2 A3 A4 etc all still stand the same chance of crippling me. uses your stack to abuse the blinds and get cheap $ that way, it sounds like you can cripple them

moral of the story, i'm uber-paranoid and feel like online poker is like a slot machine... hand patterns are picked not random cards, yet I $$$$ 30% (ft2%) of the time so obviously i don't lick donkey nards... but i don't get to FT's much in 400some person $2-$5 buyin donkaments, cuz i'm not restealing w/ KQ and stuff like that from the blinds to accumulate.
online AK can always beat pairs, but it rarely ever beats Ace-rag. i'm convinced of this. bond may ban me forever, but i'll still stick to my guns.

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

One of my favorite lines is, "I didn't come here to fold kings." I think if you're willing to fold kings preflop semi-frequently or even occasionally, you're not going to go super deep in many tournaments.

If you are playing to win, you must call here. To win tournaments, you have to get a little lucky, but you also have to be willing to take some calculated risks. In the big picture, this really isn't that much of a risk at all. Only one hand beats you. As you said, it's probably less likely that he has AA because he made such a huge overbet.

After all, your read was correct. You had him essentially dead to three outs preflop. You can't ask for much better situations than that. Don't beat yourself up just because online poker is rigged. Tough break. You should have been right up there with the chip leaders. Get 'em next time!

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

Trappped,

Don't ever ever ever EVER (in a non satellite tournament) fold KK pre. You really need to loosen up pre if you're thinking of folding here.

Re: KK, UTG, above av. chips, Stars 55k, on the Bubble
 

[quote
Don't ever ever ever EVER (in a non satellite tournament) fold KK pre.

[/ QUOTE ]

Except for the fact that I would have added a few more ever's.......yea,that's pretty much it.....