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First, sorry this is an image.
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I don't see any image. I've tried going directly to
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/334...preflopnw3.jpg and I get nothing.
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I know this issue has been debated before, and the generally accepted idea seems to be not to fold KK preflop up to around 100BB.
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Generally accepted by whom?
If you ask players who are collectively barely beating microstakes games, you will hear that they have heard that you should never fold KK preflop. They even showed Farha, known for taking bad gambles,
getting all-in with KK for 300 BB against Greenstein as evidence that ... folding KK is always wrong? (Farha pushed over Greenstein's 100 BB 4-bet.) That isn't a rational interpretation. You need to see people pushing with QQ or AK or worse to call all-in with KK.
If you look through some of the past higher stakes threads, you will see people have a very different attitude, and can not only fold KK when appropriate, but expect that some opponents are willing to fold KK preflop.
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I'm hoping to bring this discussion to a higher level, at the risk of being called a noob. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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I play poker for the money, not to avoid being called a noob. To win more than a mediocre player, you have to make plays some mediocre players don't like.
It's an excellent idea to collect real data, rather than taking a survey of players who haven't collected data objectively.
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I got burned so many times holding KK all-in preflop against AA, that I stopped being willing to go all-in preflop with KK.
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Likewise, although I used a smaller sample. This doesn't mean I fold them preflop. I adopt different lines that rarely result in getting all-in preflop. This may extract more money while ahead.
By the way, people often say that if you are willing to fold KK, then you can be bluffed very easily. This is wrong. AA makes up a large percentage of my range whenever I would consider folding KK, so pushing as a bluff would be extremely unprofitable against me.
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I ran across
this humerous picture contest thread that made me think maybe I was giving up +EV by not willing to go all-in preflop with KK for amounts anywhere near 100BB.
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[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] It depends on the
stakes. When you are playing for pennies (or the smallest live game available), the players are very likely to be overplaying a weaker hand because they think TT is a monster. When you are playing in a very aggressive game, the raises mean less, the 3-bets mean less, etc. There is a small window in which the players are rarely going to push with QQ or AK, and in this range, calling all-in with KK is often -EV.
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] It depends on
position. An open raise on the button represents much less strength than a raise from UTG. This means it takes much more room to figure out that KK is behind when there is an open-raise from late position than when there is a raise from early position.
A limp-reraise is usually strong. An overlimp-reraise is not as strong.
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] It depends on the
stack sizes. A reraise from someone who could have called for set value is much stronger than a reraise from someone who didn't have that option.
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] It depends on your
reads, obviously. Don't give a maniac who 3-bets the same credit as a passive player who 3-bets. If you have been raising a lot, people will play back at you with weaker hands.
These are factors to consider when someone sets you all-in. How some sycophant playing NL $10 feels about it shouldn't be on your list.
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Based on my data, once you pass the 60BB point, kings win less than 50% of the time, and go into deep negative average BB/hand.
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Maybe it was supposed to be clearer in the image, but that you may lose money with KK does not mean that the last call was incorrect, or that your last push was incorrect, since you don't have the option to take all of the money back from the pot.
If Farha thought that tossing in his last $178,000 would return $179,000 on average (or $179k worth of value), then he was right to do it, even though he would show an average loss of about $10,000 on the hand.
So, you might want to compare folding with calling all-in rather than comparing cancelling the hand with calling all-in.