folding kk preflop in a nl hold'em tournament

[JimD82 0]

lol does anyone notice that no one posts "i folded KK preflop no one flipped over AA" it just seems that people are trying to brag off their godly reading skills . If your reading skills are as good as you say. you would be a pro. go play some 4k-8k!

It was the correct fold. If it was a cash game and you have the right bankroll I say yeah get it in with Kings. But this was a tournament. There's no bad beat consolation prize and you can't reload. Two people in the pot: Even if one of them doesn't have aces one has atleast as an ace and you're only a 2.5:1 favorite over him and you gotta worry about the other guy's set. Two under pairs increases the likelyhood of a set or some bullcrap straight or flush. Best case scenario is both have an ace. If I got a good read leading me to believe that I'd make the call. If doubling up with big pocket pairs is your only means of chip accumulation in tournaments you might want to not play them. I'd make the fold because I have confidence that I can get chips when I need them and make it into the money without having to win hands like this. Maybe the OP was trying to brag about his reading skills but either way it was the right fold situationally in my oppinion. Why put yourself in a position where you need KK to stand up against two people in order to stay in the tourney and make the money?

[mrdannyg 274]

thanks, this gave me something to think about. at first i thought it was stupid, but then i realized that doubling up, generally with high pocket pairs is pretty much my only significant means of accumulation in a tournament.largely for this reason i don't play tournaments, but once in a while i'd like to. thanks for the provocative post.daniel

[JimD82 0]

thanks, this gave me something to think about. at first i thought it was stupid, but then i realized that doubling up, generally with high pocket pairs is pretty much my only significant means of accumulation in a tournament.largely for this reason i don't play tournaments, but once in a while i'd like to. thanks for the provocative post.daniel

Play tight in the beginning. Once the blinds become worth stealing play position with decent hands if you can get them, if not then do it with anything. If you rely on getting cards you won't be profitable in s&g's even if you play them really well. Sometimes you'll run into real hand after real hand when you try to do this but not often so don't let it discourage you. Also practice reading betting patterns. Also, if you play on UB the 'points' s&g's are good practice. They're easier than the money ones but not complete jokes like the free ones. I play em whenever I feel a little tilted after losing money to avoid losing more.

[Ucsbrat 0]

Listen there are many aspects to knowing you read, in this case you were really lucky that there was a player that you knew his style, without him or the limper, your a pretty much going into it with more assumptions than skill, would you have laid it down considreing different people, who knows.... Either way great lay down, and like a few have said, no need in putting all your chips in that early in a tournament, your feeling kinda off about the hand, cool lay it down, makes all the sense in the world.. And on a side not to those who believe the guy should be bumping up his stakes if he's that good...... WELL , NO! it takes a player to feel really comfortable with a change like that, best case scenerio he blends in right away, But if he struggles it could cost the him the bankroll he's been working so hard on... So once again, great read, and good luck to you

[kaisersoze12 0]

If ever there is a time to fold kings, this would be it. This is a fairly simple read I would say. Limp re-raise followed by a minimum raise re-raise behind a limp in then re-raise opponent. This is easy to determine/assume you are behind.Obviously the limper made a bad play, but I don't like the minimum raise by the solid player, nor do I like another minimum re-raise by your Kings. Good lay down though. Even if neither had aces, you made the correct call.In a tournament, this is an easier laydown than in a cash game.

[sprfcta 0]

Now I'm no tourney expert, having played only a few. but I won some of them.I think in the early stages the most important thing is to see other players get eliminated. Later on, you can worry about accumulating chips. Assuming, of course, you're not on a short stack.Here, you have the ideal situation--two other players butting heads with the good chance of one being sent packing.Regardless of what I held, I would let them go at it.I say "Good fold".

[MrNiceGuy 0]

Thanks for all the responses guys - My main goal of the post was to figure out if there's any way to get away from KK in this type of situation without the third player in the hand providing more info, because I couldn't see any way I could've gotten away from it if there was just two of us playing. And given that roughly half the responders didn't like my fold even with the extra information, I think it's safe to say that it's pretty much impossible (which kind of sucks, because in a full game KK will run into AA almost 5% of the time). For example, if the guy with AA would've raised more preflop (say to 200), I would've assumed he could have any typical raising hand, and I'd have made a strong reraise, which would've committed me to the pot, or perhaps I'd have just gone all in right there. But for those who didn't like the fold - I wouldn't have bet my life that I was up against AA. It could've been QQ vs. AK or AQ vs. KK or something similar - I would've been surprised, but not shocked. As I said, in this case I was pretty sure that he had either AA or KK given the way he played (and if so AA is about 12 times more likely than KK, since I have two of the kings). But as long as I'd be right more than about 60-70% of the time, I believe it's better to fold there. Epilogue: I wound up finishing 6th (top 4 paid) when I made a mistake with AK in early position - I had about 3500 chips with the blinds at 200-400, and I raised to 1600. A similar-sized stack to mine pushed all-in with pocket threes in late position; I called and couldn't catch up. I should've either bet less initially, so I would have flexibilty later in the hand (although had he still gone all-in, I would've called anyway I think), or better, I should've just pushed all-in right away, so the other player wouldn't have any fold equity.

[DCWildcat 0]

lol does anyone notice that no one posts "i folded KK preflop no one flipped over AA" it just seems that people are trying to brag off their godly reading skills . If your reading skills are as good as you say. you would be a pro. go play some 4k-8k!

I've seen people make posts on the wrong decision by mucking kings at least twice now. As for this "if you can make that read, you should go pro" thing, it's pretty ridiculous. Some players are very, very consistent in their tells. For example, one of my best friends is a fish who makes the exact same raise, regardless of position, when he holds aces. He never bets any other hand like that. This simply does not happen when you are a professional, but it is rife in the environments like the one this thread is on.I am not confident enoughin my reads to ever lay kings down preflop. It'll be a long time before I can do that in a cash game, and a lot longer in a tournament situation. That doesn't mean I won't ever hit that stage. Apparently some of y'all have.

[flyingmoose 0]

Frankly, you aren't nearly deep enough to fold Kings. It's clear that the mini-raiser wants action, but 10+1 players will beg for action with a lot of hands that KK has beat. There are times when folding Kings is clearly the correct play. But generally in those situations you have >100 big blinds, meaning your opponents would only play preflop poker with huge hands. With 12 big blinds, your opponents don't need huge hands to play preflop poker. In fact any pair 10s or better and AQs or better is probably going to try and get the money in preflop. I wish you hadn't posted the results, because I believe a lot of players would have a different opinion of the play if it didn't happen to be correct this time.With 12 Big Blinds behind me, I'm only folding kings if my opponent only scratches his balls when he has aces, and he just scratched them.

[G0lfa 0]

Keep in mind. Kings represents the second best hand in poker. When you are playing a 10,000 dollar buy in and want to protect your tournament life, you might fold kings with a few other people all in. YOU ARE IN A 10 dollar tournament for gods sake...with all the screwballs online, he prolly reraised with a pair of 8s or something. Hold on to those kings brotha, if you run into aces, thats just bad luck and you are out 10 bucks

[solo319 0]

Ya I cant understand why u would fold kk here just think about all the crazy raises people do online generally some of these people think jq off is like the the nuts preflop

[BigSlick05 0]

Recently, I was playing online in a $10 buy-in, 20-man two table tournament, when for the first time ever, I folded pocket kings preflop. This was near the beginning of the third level, the blinds were 25/50, and everyone was still in, so the average chip stack was the starting chip count of 1500.Two factors were involved in convincing me to fold - one was that there were two other players involved who were both playing like they had a big pair, and the second one was that I had played with one of them several times, and I was nearly certain that he would only play the way he did with AA or KK. So since I already had two of kings, I figured odds were he had the aces, so I folded.But I've been thinking about this hand - I can't imagine that I would've folded the kings preflop without that read, or without the third player present. When I became suspicious, I may have slowed down and just tried to get through the hand without investing all of my chips, but with the relatively large blinds, I doubt that would've been possible without an A hitting the board. I know in a 10-handed game, you'll run into AA about 1/24 times when you hold KK - is this just an automatic loss in this situation most of the time, with the relatively large blinds, if low cards hit the flop (assuming you even see it before you go all-in)? Has anyone here ever folded kings in such a situation?*********DETAILS OF THE HAND (if you're interested)************We had played about 20 hands so far and for the most part, the table had been playing relatively tight. I had about 1250 chips at this point, and I was on the button when I picked up KK. The first two players folded, and UTG+2 , who had about 1500 chips, limped. (I was not familiar with this player - his play hadn't jumped out at me one way or the other so far.) Two more folds, and the next player, who had about 1300 chips, minimum-raised to 100. I had played with this player, and that that raise surprised me, because he was a solid player who I would've expected him to raise more in this position with most hands, and limp with others. So while it was possible that he had a semistrong hand like A8, I thought it fairly likely that he had AK or a big pair. The next guy folded, and I raised it another 100, making it 200 to go, and folding the blinds.Now we're back to the limper, who now raises another 100 to 300! While I don't know this player, I can't imagine a limp-raise behind two other raises to be anything but a premium hand. Then the original minimum-raiser makes it 600. At this point I'm virtually certain that this means aces (or at worst the other two kings), and even if he doesn't have them, the other guy could. So at this point I dump the kings.Thankfully, I got to see it play out - the limper called the re-re-re-raise, the flop came 843 rainbow, the limper pushed all-in and got called. The limper had QQ and the solid player had AA, which held up (and no kings hit either).But with that hand and that flop, I'm fairly sure that without the limper present to give me extra information (and to give me a second person to worry about), I'm sure I would've been out of the tournament on that hand, because I'm sure I would've been all-in (or at least pot-committed) either preflop or on the flop.

My rule of thumb is NL is that I will never fold 3 hands...A/A...A/K....KKEven if he had A/A...then so be it....you could flop a set even though the odds are againit u....imagine if you made the wrong read and you dumped K's to pocket 3's?????????

[Mr Monkey 0]

I wouldnt fold KK in this situation. Its a $10 dollar tourney and people raise and reraise with lots of different starting hands. If he has AA then their is nothing u can do, tourneys arent like cash games u will need to win some big pots and take more chances if u want to win especially low buy in tourneys.

[princeof56k 0]

As for this "if you can make that read, you should go pro" thing, it's pretty ridiculous.

I made a similar comment about playing a higher level, and that was out of line. The level you are playing at shouldnt be part of the discussion.

Some players are very, very consistent in their tells.

Be careful of this. People are not as predictable as you think. There are a variety of things to consider here.1) Someone who has what seems to be a predictable strategy, but in fact is not. I fall under this category often in other games I play. I've frequently been called bot because of the predictable way I play. When I pull a move they've never seen before, they quickly comment about how I changed strategy. In reality, I do that move frequently. They either arent there to see it, or they were there and werent paying attention.2) People do change tactics every now and then. Thats just natural if your getting beat with that strategy or trying adjust your game. And poeple can change in a split second.3)People are emotional and will do random, unpredictable things for strange reasons or no reason at all. Maybe they go all in because because they're ticked off. Maybe they go all in because they have to be somewhere else and just want to leave (I actually did this once when a freeroll tourny went longer than i thought).These are the reasons I dont like putting so much faith in a read here with pocket Kings. AA and KK are so much stronger than any other hand based purely on statistics and KK is only behind one hand, AA. You literally have to put him on one hand and one hand only. That seems a tall order just considering how people are. This is very different from trying to put your opponent on a variety of hands. Then the odds of your read being correct increase dramatically.

[jack24bauer24 0]

I love the folding of KK preflop.Nice.

[TejasPoker 0]

Nice self control for sure, laying down those big hands is tough! ;)I don't know if I could have done it? I went out, first hand of a PM Bellaggio Satellite w/KK lolKK sure ain't the nut!