Folding Pocket Kings, Preflop...

[Young Turk 0]

7-handed play; the table is fairly Loose-Passive with a few rocks thrown in, grinding it out.UTG+1 raises to 3, one player calls, I look down to find Kings and decide to play them fast - I raise to 8. It's folded round to UTG+1 who, with shaking hands, puts the rest of his stack in; it's 44 more for me to call. The other caller folds. What should I do?UTG+1 is a very young, nervous player who is taking his first forray into the casino environment (evident because of the free drink on the house for his first session - he chose a bloody mary). He sat down fairly recently and is yet to play a pot; his disposition has me thinking he's tight and only likely to make this move with a monster...Fold or Call?

[simo_8ball 0]

Wrong forum. This is a no limit holdem hand, post it in the no limit holdem forum. <--------------- Goddamn it Zach (or whoever moved this). I clicked reply just after it was moved.That is a tiny reraise you made preflop. Raise to £12 at least.He likes his hand. The problem is, he can have QQ, he can have AKs, hell, he could just be in love with his jacks.Don't fold.It's pretty obvious that he has aces by the simple fact that you are posting this, but it's a trivially easy call against his range. It's not close.If you folded and he showed you aces well done, but you lost equity against his range.

[Young Turk 0]

Wrong forum. This is a no limit holdem hand, post it in the no limit holdem forum. <--------------- Goddamn it Zach (or whoever moved this). I clicked reply just after it was moved.That is a tiny reraise you made preflop. Raise to £12 at least.He likes his hand. The problem is, he can have QQ, he can have AKs, hell, he could just be in love with his jacks.Don't fold.It's pretty obvious that he has aces by the simple fact that you are posting this, but it's a trivially easy call against his range. It's not close.If you folded and he showed you aces well done, but you lost equity against his range.

Sorry, I decided to post it in general because I felt it was more of a question of whether to go with my read or not. Fair enough as to why it's been moved though.

[No_Neck 0]

I think I call here, the only way I fold KK preflop is if the stacks are HUGE here they are very small so I think you have to call.

[trystero 0]

You've got 52 BBs or so - this is an instacall.

[simo_8ball 0]

I agree that shaking hands signify a hand he likes (adrenaline and all that), but a kid that's been playing tight (likely not getting hands, getting a little frustrated perhaps?) isn't likely to want to play AK or QQ postflop without the betting lead if it's the first hand he's seen in hours.

[Naismith 0]

What is your image at the table? Is this kid observant enough to even know your image? Have you done a lot of re-raising prior to this? Are your re-raises typically so small?None of this is super-relevant in this hand because this is a call 99 percent of the time with the 1 percent being a super-nitty-rock exception, but it's still good information to have when discussing a hand like this.

[PokerZombie 0]

It's 44 to win 63, so you have to be about 75% 'sure' vs his range to break even. I think this is where online and live play is v.different. Versus an online player it's probably a call but based on the 'shaking hands' I think it's a 50-50 because if he had AK, QQ, JJ he would have much more hesitant body language and bet sizing, which I don't think was the case at all.The final thing is, if he's a rookie there's a decent chance he'll show his hand if you fold, so you may not need to pay for the information associated with the body language..PZ

[dms26 3]

I'm not ever folding KK preflop for half a buy in unless his hand is exposed.

[mtdesmoines 3]

7-handed play; the table is fairly Loose-Passive with a few rocks thrown in, grinding it out.UTG+1 raises to 3, one player calls, I look down to find Kings and decide to play them fast - I raise to 8. It's folded round to UTG+1 who, with shaking hands, puts the rest of his stack in; it's 44 more for me to call. The other caller folds. What should I do?UTG+1 is a very young, nervous player who is taking his first forray into the casino environment (evident because of the free drink on the house for his first session - he chose a bloody mary). He sat down fairly recently and is yet to play a pot; his disposition has me thinking he's tight and only likely to make this move with a monster...Fold or Call?

We don't fold KK preflop. If the kid is as tight as you say, and you double him up, grind him back down. No big deal.

[David_Nicoson 1]

I agree that shaking hands signify a hand he likes (adrenaline and all that), but a kid that's been playing tight (likely not getting hands, getting a little frustrated perhaps?) isn't likely to want to play AK or QQ postflop without the betting lead if it's the first hand he's seen in hours.

Agreed.I remember playing a 1/2 hand at Binion's as a beginner. The board was A Q 8 7 A. I had A8 for aces full of eights in a limped pot with position.I bet the flop and turn. Villain led the river, I raised, and he reraised. There was still money left to be played, and I read him (correctly) for very high confidence in his hand. I flat-called, he announced aces full, and finally showed A7. I left a lot of money on the table because I put too much emphasis on how much my opponent liked his hand. The fact is, he could love a lot of hands that I beat, not just the nuts.

[Pot Odds RAC 23]

Agreed.I remember playing a 1/2 hand at Binion's as a beginner. The board was A Q 8 7 A. I had A8 for aces full of eights in a limped pot with position.I bet the flop and turn. Villain led the river, I raised, and he reraised. There was still money left to be played, and I read him (correctly) for very high confidence in his hand. I flat-called, he announced aces full, and finally showed A7. I left a lot of money on the table because I put too much emphasis on how much my opponent liked his hand. The fact is, he could love a lot of hands that I beat, not just the nuts.

I've been on the "Idiot End" of this situation where I insta pushed holding a good non-nuts hand with the wrong read on my opponent, I had him on a lesser hand. He said: "You're way too confident" and mucked, showing his "professional laydown" of a better hand!He read my confidence correctly - it was just unfounded confidence based on me misreading him.This is like, what, 4th level thinking?

[mtdesmoines 3]

I've been on the "Idiot End" of this situation where I insta pushed holding a good non-nuts hand with the wrong read on my opponent, I had him on a lesser hand. He said: "You're way too confident" and mucked, showing his "professional laydown" of a better hand! He read my confidence correctly - it was just unfounded confidence based on me misreading him. This is like, what, 4th level thinking?

sometimes our "reads" are garbage because the player giving off the tell is too stupid to know he's behind

[Pot Odds RAC 23]

sometimes our "reads" are garbage because the player giving off the tell is too stupid to know he's behind

Maybe in my case my opponent was too stupid to know he was ahead and therefore was "telling" underconfidence......how about that smart guy?!?...or maybe I was just too stupid......but I got the guy to lay down the winning hand - I was too stupid to know I was behind - he was too stupid to know he was ahead......point stupid.

[mtdesmoines 3]

Maybe in my case my opponent was too stupid to know he was ahead and therefore was "telling" underconfidence......how about that smart guy?!?...or maybe I was just too stupid......but I got the guy to lay down the winning hand......point stupid.

LOL, I was speaking in general terms, but if you want to go ahead and assume ...

[Pot Odds RAC 23]

LOL, I was speaking in general terms, but if you want to go ahead and assume ...

I am starting to make a good living out of assuming I am the Stupid Fish @ the table!

[NoBBiR 0]

If you were very deep, you could feasibly drop this, but with that small of a stack (100 bb's is a normal stack) you're never folding. You're crushing his range and you can dog his aces if he has them anyway. He has QQ, AK, JJ, and the other two Kings more than he has two aces.277,393,248 games 0.005 secs 55,478,649,600 games/secBoard: Dead: equity win tie pots won pots tied Hand 0: 62.601% 60.55% 02.05% 167969868 5680134.00 { KK }Hand 1: 37.399% 35.35% 02.05% 98063112 5680134.00 { JJ+, AKs, AKo }Heck, even if you're sure he's not doing this without JJ+ you're still not folding.195,202,656 games 0.005 secs 39,040,531,200 games/secBoard: Dead: equity win tie pots won pots tied Hand 0: 59.955% 57.22% 02.73% 111699888 5334114.00 { KK }Hand 1: 40.045% 37.31% 02.73% 72834540 5334114.00 { JJ+ }

[iggymcfly 0]

I was playing 2/5 NL at Bellagio a couple weeks ago and some 75 year old nit who'd been playing very few pots reraised an open from I think $25 to $75 or something. His hands were shaking like crazy, they were honestly moving about 3 inches up and down and he could barely get his chips in. I think I called with a small pair or something looking to get stacks against AA if I hit. There were two other callers as well. The flop comes AKx, and the nit checks. He's really got AA now, right? Well, there's a bet from another player, I fold, it folds back around to the nit and... he folds! So you can't put too much into a simple read like that. You don't know exactly what he has even if you think you do. That you were thinking about folding KK for 22 BB to a shortstack who's a new player is beyond bad. I bet this is AK at least as often as AA, and for all you know, he could be shoving 88 and up.

[AKProdigy 0]

I was playing 2/5 NL at Bellagio a couple weeks ago and some 75 year old nit who'd been playing very few pots reraised an open from I think $25 to $75 or something. His hands were shaking like crazy, they were honestly moving about 3 inches up and down and he could barely get his chips in. I think I called with a small pair or something looking to get stacks against AA if I hit. There were two other callers as well. The flop comes AKx, and the nit checks. He's really got AA now, right? Well, there's a bet from another player, I fold, it folds back around to the nit and... he folds! So you can't put too much into a simple read like that. You don't know exactly what he has even if you think you do. That you were thinking about folding KK for 22 BB to a shortstack who's a new player is beyond bad. I bet this is AK at least as often as AA, and for all you know, he could be shoving 88 and up.

Well said. Completely agree.

[Young Turk 0]

I called because I thought there's only one hand in his range of 'monsters' which beats me, and thus folding is -EV. He showed pocket Kings too but I won the hand with a flush...this single outdraw has caused me to abstain from whining about luck for a good 2 weeks .However the hand brought me to thinking about Aces vs Kings situations and whether one can ever get away from them; I think you should (except in exceptional circumstances) never second-guess yourself with Kings and if you run into Aces once every couple-or-so-hundred hands, that's merely variance...

[mtdesmoines 3]

I called because I thought there's only one hand in his range of 'monsters' which beats me, and thus folding is -EV. He showed pocket Kings too but I won the hand with a flush...this single outdraw has caused me to abstain from whining about luck for a good 2 weeks .However the hand brought me to thinking about Aces vs Kings situations and whether one can ever get away from them; I think you should (except in exceptional circumstances) never second-guess yourself with Kings and if you run into Aces once every couple-or-so-hundred hands, that's merely variance...

January 2007Me: KK 12 timesVillain: AA 8 of those 12We got it in PF about every time, and after the flop when we didn't. Me: hit a set ONCE, but villain: hit set of AAA same hand, so same result as the other seven. Shit happens. Took me two months to work back from it.