To the felt or what?

[Wayfare]

180 left out of 900 at $20+2 regular PP NL tourney. I have 6500, average stack is 3000(around). Blinds 100/200

I pick up KK in the button. UTG min raises to 400, three(!) call. I make it 1800 to go, one cold caller with 3200 to start the hand.

Flop AT5 rainbow. He checks to you.

What is your move on the flop (seemed obvious to me), and preflop (more important)?

Thanks guys

[z32fanatic]

I might just push in preflop. The pot already has 1500 in it that I would love to take down. In addition, it almost looks like a steal, which may let you get called by a much weaker hand like 77. KK is one of the hardest hands to play when an A falls, so I don't like committing almost 1/3 my stack only to freak out if an falls. Push in and increase your stack by 20% probably without a showdown.
That said, on the flop, I probably check to him and call his bets. If you push in, any hand that beats you will not fold. Also, any hand your beating will fold. I would check to him and let someone with JJ bet his chips. Your basically going to the felt here, so let him do the betting for you.

[Che]

With four limpers in a pot, I normally raise to at least 7xBB. Given that we have a minraise and three callers, I would normally raise to at least 2400 on deep money. In this case, I would just push PF since you couldn't make a meaningful PF raise AND a pot-sized flop bet even if everyone's stack was as big as yours. If I *only* get the 1900 in the pot, that's fine with me.

As you played it, I push on the flop even though that may let QQ or JJ get away when they would have bluffed after a check or two. The risk of occasionally losing the big pot overshadows the possibility of picking up 1400 extra chips IMHO so I wouldn't get tricky.

If he has AA or TT, bummer. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

Later,
Che

[Schmed]

with all of those callers I push and only have someone who's serious call. By pushing you get the guy who was getting odds with his AJs to think about folding and get the guy with the 99 to call.

[Wayfare]

Bump