UMTerp
12-10-2004, 05:42 PM
Here's a hand a buddy of mine e-mailed me, and was looking for some comments. I know the general "never fold KK online preflop, yada, yada, yada, but this situation appears extraoridnary to me. Do you have to grit your teeth and call, or can anyone find a fold here?
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His story:
10 dollar NL Holdem tourney last night on Pokerstars. I have ~5000 chips. I'm ranked ~120th out of 240 remaining. Top 81 pay. Blinds are 100/200. I'm under the gun and I get KK. Immediately I go through a series of ways to do this. The three options I think available are call and reraise, raise 3x or go all in right from the get go and hope someone else has a lower pair to call you with. Well, I decided on option #2. I figured there would be callers since I had a whole table of players to go yet. So I raise to 600 leaving me with ~4400.
Well 2nd position has ~2800 chips and pushes all in. I'm thinking....good. I'm gonna make me some chips here. But then....Position #4 with ~4000 chips calls the 2800 bet. I'm a little more worried now because anyone with aces is only going to call that first push in the hopes of pulling more people into the pot. Or....he's got AK, AQ, 10 10, J J, etc.... I'm thinking I'm gonna go over the top of this guy and put him all in. That way I'll have two shots at winning here.
But then.....BB, who has ~8000 chips pushes all in. This guy has to have aces right? Or is he making an isolation bet? Scaring me and #4 out of the hand so his 10 10 or JJ or QQ can go heads up against #2. I used quite a bit of time thinking over the whole hand. If I call and win I'm in the top 5 and possibly chip leader. Even if the guy has aces I almost have pot odds to call with my Kings (4400 chips to win either 16000 or 14500 depending on whether #4 calls).
I'm an inch away from folding this hand and I start to think about how the people who take chances are the ones who win tournaments and I wanted to take a shot. I called. #4 folds. #2 has 10 10. BB has AA. No one hit and the aces held. Did I do the right stuff here? Was my thought process solid? I've been thinking about it quite a bit. I could have folded and eeked my way into the money, which is what I do quite a bit. I'm still not sure.
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And FWIW, he said the player in the BB was "mmdog", one of the better tournament players on the site.
Here was my response:
"And as far as Larry's hand, although I'd advocate calling with kings about 99% of the time, I think I'd have laid it down this time (but called with AA of course). There's almost no chance mmdog didn't have aces.
And FWIW, if he was only the second player that went all-in over your raise, I'd have still called. "
Him: "UMTerp, you think you actually could have laid them down? I was so close to doing it but I couldn't pull the trigger. I knew he had the aces and I still called. It would take massive amounts of discipline to fold that. I think next time I will be able to do it. I'm glad at least that someone has finally argued on the side of folding. I was feeling very outnumbered. "
Me: "Yeah, I probably would've. It because of who your opponent was too. If it was an unknown player in a $10 tournament, I'd have a lot tougher time folding them. The planets really have to be aligned just right to pull off a fold like this, but in this case (3 all-ins over your raise, with the thrid being by a very good tournament player, who happens to have you covered), I think they were. You could probably played for 10 years and not run into this again though. I'm always calling against a single opponent here, and 99% of the time against two opponents. "
Him: "Fair enough. At least I feel like my thought process was good even if i didn't act on it. What about the decision to raise 3x to begin with? In the end this wouldn't have mattered considering the hands that were on the table, but was this a good play before seeing any of the other action go down?"
Me: "Yes, that's standard. Any more or less and you're giving info away.
And FWIW, I usually bump my standard open to 4x BB once the antes kick in if my stack allows it. With 3x, you're giving the BB pretty good odds to see a flop and catch up, particularly if he's a large stack."
Looking for a little more discussion here. Any comments are appreciated, and I'll relay them to my buddy. Thanks.
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His story:
10 dollar NL Holdem tourney last night on Pokerstars. I have ~5000 chips. I'm ranked ~120th out of 240 remaining. Top 81 pay. Blinds are 100/200. I'm under the gun and I get KK. Immediately I go through a series of ways to do this. The three options I think available are call and reraise, raise 3x or go all in right from the get go and hope someone else has a lower pair to call you with. Well, I decided on option #2. I figured there would be callers since I had a whole table of players to go yet. So I raise to 600 leaving me with ~4400.
Well 2nd position has ~2800 chips and pushes all in. I'm thinking....good. I'm gonna make me some chips here. But then....Position #4 with ~4000 chips calls the 2800 bet. I'm a little more worried now because anyone with aces is only going to call that first push in the hopes of pulling more people into the pot. Or....he's got AK, AQ, 10 10, J J, etc.... I'm thinking I'm gonna go over the top of this guy and put him all in. That way I'll have two shots at winning here.
But then.....BB, who has ~8000 chips pushes all in. This guy has to have aces right? Or is he making an isolation bet? Scaring me and #4 out of the hand so his 10 10 or JJ or QQ can go heads up against #2. I used quite a bit of time thinking over the whole hand. If I call and win I'm in the top 5 and possibly chip leader. Even if the guy has aces I almost have pot odds to call with my Kings (4400 chips to win either 16000 or 14500 depending on whether #4 calls).
I'm an inch away from folding this hand and I start to think about how the people who take chances are the ones who win tournaments and I wanted to take a shot. I called. #4 folds. #2 has 10 10. BB has AA. No one hit and the aces held. Did I do the right stuff here? Was my thought process solid? I've been thinking about it quite a bit. I could have folded and eeked my way into the money, which is what I do quite a bit. I'm still not sure.
--------------------------------------------
And FWIW, he said the player in the BB was "mmdog", one of the better tournament players on the site.
Here was my response:
"And as far as Larry's hand, although I'd advocate calling with kings about 99% of the time, I think I'd have laid it down this time (but called with AA of course). There's almost no chance mmdog didn't have aces.
And FWIW, if he was only the second player that went all-in over your raise, I'd have still called. "
Him: "UMTerp, you think you actually could have laid them down? I was so close to doing it but I couldn't pull the trigger. I knew he had the aces and I still called. It would take massive amounts of discipline to fold that. I think next time I will be able to do it. I'm glad at least that someone has finally argued on the side of folding. I was feeling very outnumbered. "
Me: "Yeah, I probably would've. It because of who your opponent was too. If it was an unknown player in a $10 tournament, I'd have a lot tougher time folding them. The planets really have to be aligned just right to pull off a fold like this, but in this case (3 all-ins over your raise, with the thrid being by a very good tournament player, who happens to have you covered), I think they were. You could probably played for 10 years and not run into this again though. I'm always calling against a single opponent here, and 99% of the time against two opponents. "
Him: "Fair enough. At least I feel like my thought process was good even if i didn't act on it. What about the decision to raise 3x to begin with? In the end this wouldn't have mattered considering the hands that were on the table, but was this a good play before seeing any of the other action go down?"
Me: "Yes, that's standard. Any more or less and you're giving info away.
And FWIW, I usually bump my standard open to 4x BB once the antes kick in if my stack allows it. With 3x, you're giving the BB pretty good odds to see a flop and catch up, particularly if he's a large stack."
Looking for a little more discussion here. Any comments are appreciated, and I'll relay them to my buddy. Thanks.