KK in NL cash

[ItalianFX]

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So, when you hold KK and call an all in, or are called when you push, then I am asking if others are seeing AA too often nowadays, like I am. The odds of someone holding AA when you hold KK are not relevant. The relevant odds are what they hold those times they are willing to put all their chips in the middle.

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I would think multiple raises (the raising war) would signify AA more often than if someone immediately goes all-in. Calling your KK pushes is also pretty hard to justify because if people are watching you, they will probably call based on how they see you. If you are an extreme TAG, then most people won't be calling you unless they have AA or KK. If you are very loose, people will be more willing to call with QQ/JJ, AK, and maybe AQ.

This is all where reading hands comes into play.

[Yads]

What do you want to hear? Always fold KK to the fourth reraise it's always AA. There you go.

[qdmcg]

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jeff, I know most people disagree with you, but I do think there are spots to fold KK pre. I don't see how when that tight player makes that 3rd or 4th raise against you (assuming you're playing pretty tight as well) that you're up against AK or QQ/JJ enough. I do feel there are times where calling AI with KK is -EV, as sacrilegious as that sounds.

Keep in mind that being willing to fold KK pre can be exploited by your opponent, though.

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A breath of fresh air! TY. Now, how can folding KK be exploited if they don't know what you had? Frankly, since conventional wisdom is what it is, I doubt anyone would ever suspect you just folded kings. They would have to assume you just folded a bluff, or AQ, or JJ or something. And this scenario would be rare enough they probably could never get any useful info on you.

To be willing to fold, another thing to keep in mind is the pot odds of your final fold. You obviously can't get in $150 of your $200 stack, then fold to the final all in raise.

In fact that's part of the difficulty. To get to a point where you're convinced your opponent has a high chance of holding AA, it would require a good amount of money in the pot, increasing your pot odds for a call.

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FWIW, I totally see what you're saying. It's not sac religious to even discuss the remote possibility of folding KK preflop.

I play lower than you (NL100), but even at Stars, checking over my Pokertracker, a large% of the times I've gotten someone to stick their stack in preflop (when I had KK), they've had AA. However, there are still a decent percent of the time where they have QQ,JJ,AK, etc.

I sleep better at night when I don't fold KK preflop.

[holyfield5]

kinda pissed, i just wrote a whole long reply and deleted it while posting a HH to it GRRRR.

cliff notes of my original post -

you are playing a cash game so your decision is based on whether you are ahead of the range of hands he would do this with. If he will felt more than AA its +EV to felt your KK.

the amount of money required to see if someone has AA commits you, deeper than 100BB you can fold it, not deeper you cannot.

By folding KK PF, every single time you are wrong the amount of BB this cost you is very high, you net -20BB or -30BB or whatever instead of +100BB, you will come out even felting it since you have AA v KK as often as you have KK v AA so giving up that amount of +EV is terrible.

the raising with KK will also make it harder to exploit you and play back at you, if you stop felting it you turn into a nit PF.

maybe one thing that is skewing your view is that you dont get to see it, if someone pushes all in with AK or QQ and i have QQ myself i wont be calling(the first times hehe) and you wont see either hand.

100BB deep you can fold KK PF vs a very small amount of players but they do exist, the point is that vs unkowns you cant it you would have to play quite a few hands with someone and see them felt nothing but AA.

if your PF play is aggressive enough, people will felt all sorts of trash, take this hand for example.(not indicative by any stretch just an example of a non AA felt)

Full Tilt Poker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
5 Players
LegoPoker Hand Converter

<font color="black">Stack Sizes</font>
CO: $48.50
BTN: $91.05
SB: $53.95
Hero (BB): $76.45
UTG: $110.25

<font color="black">Preflop:</font> K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] ($0.75, 5 players)
UTG folds, CO folds, BTN folds, <font color="red">SB raises to $1.50</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises to $6.50</font>, <font color="red">SB raises to $19.50</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises all in to $76.95</font>, SB calls all in for $34.70
Uncalled bet of $22.75 returned to Hero

<font color="black">Flop:</font> J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] ($108.4, 2 players)
No action

<font color="black">Turn:</font> J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]] ($108.4, 2 players)
No action

<font color="black">River:</font> J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]] ($108.4, 2 players)
No action

<font color="black">Results:</font>
SB had A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (a pair of Jacks)
Hero had K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (two pair, Kings and Jacks) and won $105.40
Final Pot: $105.40 ($3.00 rake)

ok thats all i got, sorry that the more detailed post got deleted but i tried to at least touch on all the points i hit in more depth in that post.

[jeffnc]

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What do you want to hear? Always fold KK to the fourth reraise it's always AA. There you go.

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For crissakes, you guys always come out of the woodwork for this stuff. Nice math analysis.

[jeffnc]

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if your PF play is aggressive enough, people will felt all sorts of trash, take this hand for example

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Yeah, see, I'm just not seeing that. Perhaps the reason is that I don't 2 or 3 bet often enough with other hands. Actually, I've been 2 betting a lot more lately with light hands and get folds probably more than 80% of the time. But 3 betting - no, not without AA/KK.

Having said that, I multi table and so do a lot of other players I face, so I'm not sure how much individual tendencies get noticed.

But maybe I'm not seeing it as much precisely for the reason you said. However, I'm also watching other 4-bet/all-in plays at the tables and I'm not seeing AJ ever (not with healhty stack sizes). I have seen AK or QQ a few times.

[jeffnc]

OK we haven't distinguished the cases where you're pushing or calling a push, or how many bets there have been.

Let's do some math. Assume this particular case. You raise, get reraised, you 3-bet, and your opponent pushes. Let's say the hands you face are AA/QQ/AK. Now like I said I've been seeing 100% AA - I have to believe that's just variance but what are good players really pushing there? Give it

AA - 70%
QQ - 20%
AK - 10%

Against that range KK is only 36% equity. Change it to
AA - 60%
QQ - 15%
AK - 15%
semi-random - 10%

And you get up to 40% equity (I'm not seeing a situation that good, I don't know if you guys are).

For 36% we need 1.78:1 pot odds to be profitable. So with $200 stacks, raise to $6, get reraised to $18, reraise to $55, opponent goes all in, there is $255 in the pot and $145 to call which is 1.76:1. So I think it's pretty damn close in this case, and not necessarily +EV by any means if that range is about right. You're going to lose $55 here whether you fold or call.

But what if the range were
AA - 80%
QQ - 8%
AK - 8%
semi-random - 4%

Then we've got 29% equity and need 2.45:1. Now folding loses you $55 and calling loses you $85.

It really doesn't seem unreasonable to me to see AA here 4 times out of 5, but others might think differently.

[jeffnc]

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Calling your KK pushes is also pretty hard to justify because if people are watching you, they will probably call based on how they see you. If you are an extreme TAG, then most people won't be calling you unless they have AA or KK. If you are very loose, people will be more willing to call with QQ/JJ, AK, and maybe AQ.

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This could be an important part of it. But it can't just be looseness. It has to be specifically looseness with 3-betting.

I mentioned in one post making what I think was a big mistake in a live game in Vegas. One of the players at the table was really bad. He raised with utter trash and cold called raises with utter trash. He was a real donator. Finally I got QQ and I was prepared to reem him if he would just stay in the hand. I raised, he reraised. Bingo! I went all in, he called and showed KK.

My mistake? In 4 hours of raising and cold calling, he had not reraised a single time at the table, until my hand. To a lot of players, 3 betting just really means something.

[ItalianFX]

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Calling your KK pushes is also pretty hard to justify because if people are watching you, they will probably call based on how they see you. If you are an extreme TAG, then most people won't be calling you unless they have AA or KK. If you are very loose, people will be more willing to call with QQ/JJ, AK, and maybe AQ.

[/ QUOTE ]

This could be an important part of it. But it can't just be looseness. It has to be specifically looseness with 3-betting.

I mentioned in one post making what I think was a big mistake in a live game in Vegas. One of the players at the table was really bad. He raised with utter trash and cold called raises with utter trash. He was a real donator. Finally I got QQ and I was prepared to reem him if he would just stay in the hand. I raised, he reraised. Bingo! I went all in, he called and showed KK.

My mistake? In 4 hours of raising and cold calling, he had not reraised a single time at the table, until my hand. To a lot of players, 3 betting just really means something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then that QQ vs KK situation comes down to the abnormal playing of your opponent. If they do something that you aren't expecting, you can almost read their hand perfectly. It's just like in a tournament, heads-up, someone raises, pushes, raises, raises...etc, and then one hand they limp. That should set off warning bells.

[pzhon]

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<font color="black">Preflop:</font> K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] ($0.75, 5 players)
UTG folds, CO folds, BTN folds, <font color="red">SB raises to $1.50</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises to $6.50</font>, <font color="red">SB raises to $19.50</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises all in to $76.95</font>, SB calls all in for $34.70
<font color="black">Results:</font>
SB had A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (a pair of Jacks)
Hero had K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (two pair, Kings and Jacks) and won $105.40

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That hand was blind versus blind, and the player with KK pushed rather than calling all-in. It takes much less strength to raise blind versus blind, so there is much less room to find out that KK might be behind enough to fold.

It can easily be right to fold KK preflop, particularly in NL $100 and NL $200 online games where the players are not very aggressive and not very imaginative. E.g., UTG at a full table raises, you reraise in middle position, UTG pushes giving you lousy odds. In a similar sample to the OP's, I found only AA when I called all-in with KK. Being willing to fold KK is not exploitable if you will often use the same betting pattern with AA, and of course you will call with AA. Nevertheless, you will find plenty of unthinking reactions from people who think folding KK is heresy, or who assume that the same folks who believe AT is a great hand at NL $25 are playing NL $100. (Some are, but they aren't as common.) Folding KK preflop is not necessarily wrong; it's just unpopular.