KK in NL cash

[Wilco666]

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You are going to make a lot of friends on the interweb.

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What can I say Wilco? I recognize a smart ass answer when I see one. In my opinion my question was perfectly valid. Why would someone rather waste time with a flame if they have no interest in pursuing the topic? Your opinion is noted, but frankly I'm not sure why you bothered if you have no interest in the actual topic at hand either. I'm well aware of how to make friends. I didn't ask about the value of moving all in with kings so I could find new friends. But if someone wants to get smart ass with me, I'll play along. I have a feeling you would too.

[/ QUOTE ]People take time to answers your question. Sometimes in a slightly sarcastic way, but usually with some useful info, and sometimes a bit of both. If you react so defensively to these answers, people might stop answering your questions completely.

[jeffnc]

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I don't understand why you are getting so defensive. You tell me to stop replying poker forums, yet you can't keep your cool when you get some feedback.

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I can keep my cool just fine. Now let's get one thing perfectly clear. I didn't tell you to stop replying to poker forums. I made an analogy to the statement you made. If I were to state it plainly I'd say "Don't post non sequiturs."

"If you think that KK is a bad hand, you should stop playing poker"

Did I say KK is a bad hand? No, so why the smart ass remark?

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Ok, so you're saying when you push KK, Aces will call. Yes, if someone is holding AA, they will call

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No, that's not evenly remotely close to what I said. I appreciate any input you have, but please don't put words in my mouth, like I think KK is a bad hand.

I am not complaining that AA calls when I push KK. (Actually I'm not complaining about anything at all.) I'm stating that when I push or call a push with KK, AA is all I'm seeing. I'm asking for feedback and experience if other players are starting to see more of this these days. Similar to how internet cash play in general has gotten tighter and tight these days.

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However, it doesn't take Dick Tracey to realize that KK running into AA is just variance.

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Why? You admit you have little real experience (I think only 400 hands in cash games recently? !!) So based on what do you make the claim that KK running into AA is just variance? Having read it elsewhere?

Well I've read the same thing too. And I keep reading people such as yourself regurgitating that same thing. However I have thousands and thousands of hands more than you, and I'm seeing something quite different from what we've read (i.e. conventional wisdom).

Another example. We've all read how great it is to call raises with pocket pairs so we can stack the guy holding AA when we flop a set. However I'm just not seeing it often. All decent players are just not going to go broke holding 1 pair. My conclusion is that there are many more "decent players". The days you can felt people at will every time they have AA/KK and you have 2 pair or better are over, IME.

Another conclusion that I'm starting to form is that the hands that are willing to get it all in preflop are stronger than they used to be. Is it possible it's variance? Absolutely it's very possible. I've played hundreds of thousands of cash Holdem, I know very well about variance. It's also possible my evidence is indicating that it's more than mere variance.

This is significant even if there is a lot of variance in my sample. If all my hands show AA and KK being shown down, then it can be variance and at the same time point to KK being -EV when all in simply because the pendulum is swinging the range too far toward AA vs AK/QQ/JJ whatever. In fact even if QQ/JJ went down and AK went up in the mix it could still be bad as long as AA was high enough.

[jeffnc]

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People take time to answers your question. Sometimes in a slightly sarcastic way, but usually with some useful info, and sometimes a bit of both.

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It's very irritating to read the same old knee jerk reactions. It's like living in the dark ages.

ItalianFX says "KK is still a very large favorite".

According to him he has played 400 hands of cash NL (see his other post). No offense to anyone, but that's just not useful info. It's rather frustrating to ask a legitimate question and see 20 pages of flames and not one useful piece of info. I'm quite aware of how the internet works, I've been getting and giving good info on dozens of forums for years.

If you have any, let's hear it.

[ItalianFX]

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No, that's not evenly remotely close to what I said. I appreciate any input you have, but please don't put words in my mouth, like I think KK is a bad hand.

I am not complaining that AA calls when I push KK. (Actually I'm not complaining about anything at all.) I'm stating that when I push or call a push with KK, AA is all I'm seeing. I'm asking for feedback and experience if other players are starting to see more of this these days. Similar to how internet cash play in general has gotten tighter and tight these days.

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So what are you saying?

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You admit you have little real experience (I think only 400 hands in cash games recently? !!) So based on what do you make the claim that KK running into AA is just variance? Having read it elsewhere?

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I've been playing poker for over a year now, but just started grinding NL Cash. I've played MTT, STT, Limit, some NL.

You do realize that there are like 1300 some starting hands and the probability of running into AA every time is very small? I'm not a statistics guru, but I think a 5-year old could figure that out.

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Well I've read the same thing too. And I keep reading people such as yourself regurgitating that same thing.

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So what's the problem? Is everyone wrong except for you?

I think what I am getting is that the tables are getting tougher and that you can't extract value out of your bigger holdings, but when you do have those big hands and someone plays back, they are holding a big hand too. Am I right?

[ItalianFX]

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ItalianFX says "KK is still a very large favorite".

According to him he has played 400 hands of cash NL (see his other post). No offense to anyone, but that's just not useful info. It's rather frustrating to ask a legitimate question and see 20 pages of flames and not one useful piece of info. I'm quite aware of how the internet works, I've been getting and giving good info on dozens of forums for years.


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Dude, it's not like I just woke up today and said, "It's cold outside, maybe I'll see what this poker thing is all about."

Maybe you didn't read my other post very carefully, but maybe you'll understand now.

If I had to estimate, I'd say I have played around 50,000 hands of some form of Texas Hold 'Em - maybe even more than that.

[jeffnc]

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Dude, it's not like I just woke up today and said, "It's cold outside, maybe I'll see what this poker thing is all about."

Maybe you didn't read my other post very carefully, but maybe you'll understand now.

If I had to estimate, I'd say I have played around 50,000 hands of some form of Texas Hold 'Em - maybe even more than that.

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I read your other post very carefully. You wrote "I've just started to get into the grind of NL cash games. Right now I play 10NL and am very slightly up. I am very TAG, and my VPIP/PFR shows it...but I have a very small sample size right now (like 400 hands). I used to play tournaments alot and hung out in MTT/MTTC alot, and STT for a brief while.

Opposed to tournaments, in cash games, you can just stay TAG the whole time and wait for the big hands. In tournaments, you must react to the changing dynamics, steal, resteal, push/fold, etc."

I understand you've played a good bit of Holdem. Most of it has been in tournaments. I specifically said in this thread I'm talking about cash games. Getting it all in is very different in tournaments than in cash games, and if anything my experience this past 6 months suggests the difference is if anything more so. I have experience in both and in tournaments getting it all in will be done with far weaker hands on average. I play on FullTilt and you can check out results on thepokerdb.com and sharkscope.com for jeffnc. Not claiming to be an expert, but I'm a winning tournament player and winning cash player. And since you are transitioning to cash play, be aware that pushes in tournaments are much lighter than in well-stacked cash play, in general.

Also, the stakes I mentioned are higher than the stakes you're playing. You are going to see weaker hands calling you all in at NL10 than NL200. You will see bad hands in NL200 in the sense that people will occasionally bluff all in, but you're not going to see all in calls with nearly as many weak hands as in NL10.

[JOHNY CA$H]

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.

[jeffnc]

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You do realize that there are like 1300 some starting hands and the probability of running into AA every time is very small? I'm not a statistics guru, but I think a 5-year old could figure that out.

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No, you are still not getting it. Obviously the odds of running into AA when you have KK is very very small. That goes without saying.

What I am saying is that I am seeing a tighter range than conventional wisdom states in the following case:
- a raising war starts preflop
- a 4th raise (usually) is made

In this case, for calling the 4th raise (or making the 4th raise all in) while holding KK, you will see AA some percentage of the time. You have huge negative expectation in that case. To be +EV with KK, you have to see hands other than AA a large enough amount of time to more than make up for the times you see AA. You have to see QQ/JJ/AK etc enough. If you see AA 50% of the time and some combination of those other hands 50% of the time, you will lose money. (you will beat AA as often as you lose to QQ/JJ, but AK is less of an underdog to KK than QQ/JJ).

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.

[jeffnc]

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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.

[Jaycee07]

Lol Jeff just tell the guy to re-read the initial post. I'm not sure I've noticed the same thing as you to be honest. It's certainly true however that people have really tightened up regarding PF all-in. It seems standard to only push/call QQ+. I've recently found myself folding Queens much more frequently...knowing that my oponnent just would'nt push with JJ from two raises.