KK 3-Bet Pre-Flop

[Jazza]

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (10 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

UTG+1 ($203.59)
UTG+2 ($82.96)
MP1 ($205.82)
MP2 ($41.62)
MP3 ($187.85)
CO ($215.55)
Button ($82.2)
<font color="#C00000">Hero ($98)</font>
<font color="#C00000">BB ($97)</font>
UTG ($128.84)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K/images/graemlins/spade.gif, K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif. Hero posts a blind of $0.5.
<font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, MP1 calls $1, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to $5</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero (poster) raises to $14.5</font>, <font color="#CC3333">BB raises to $34</font>, MP1 folds, Button folds, Hero

have played 2 hands with this guy, no read, what's my plan?

[jeccross]

I'd push almost every time with KK here, would only fold if I have a very good read (i.e. he's supertight)

[JaBlue]

your plan is to fold

[kongo_totte]

Call.

There are to many possibilities he does not have the only hand that beats you. Hew might think it's a blind steal and a blind defense and wants to take it down w/ QQ-JJ. Or, he could be an average awful Party Player and make this w/ any PP down to Ts.

I don't like to push though. He is likely to fold QQ-JJ and always calls with A A. From extracting purposes, call and let him call down his over pair (which hopefully is lower than yours).

AA vs. KK happend and I'm not folding KK on Party SSNL without a read.

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
Call.

There are to many possibilities he does not have the only hand that beats you. Hew might think it's a blind steal and a blind defense and wants to take it down w/ QQ-JJ. Or, he could be an average awful Party Player and make this w/ any PP down to Ts.

I don't like to push though. He is likely to fold QQ-JJ and always calls with A A. From extracting purposes, call and let him call down his over pair (which hopefully is lower than yours).

AA vs. KK happend and I'm not folding KK on Party SSNL without a read.

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What is your plan for a ragged flop? How about a flop with an ace on it?

[kongo_totte]

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[ QUOTE ]
Call.

There are to many possibilities he does not have the only hand that beats you. Hew might think it's a blind steal and a blind defense and wants to take it down w/ QQ-JJ. Or, he could be an average awful Party Player and make this w/ any PP down to Ts.

I don't like to push though. He is likely to fold QQ-JJ and always calls with A A. From extracting purposes, call and let him call down his over pair (which hopefully is lower than yours).

AA vs. KK happend and I'm not folding KK on Party SSNL without a read.

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What is your plan for a ragged flop? How about a flop with an ace on it?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm definatly betting a ragged flop. I'm really not sure if an A flops. Bet?

[Ghazban]

I was just curious. You're correct in that pushing preflop lets QQ-TT get away cheaply preflop when they would've gone broke on a rag flop but, at the same time, you're giving up initiative on a hand where you will be out of position and the pot will be large.

Betting an A-high flop could make villain lay down the other two kings, but I don't think it gains you anything from any other hand (as QQ-TT will likely fold) and anything with an ace in it (AA/AK maybe AQs) isn't going anywhere anyway. However, if you don't bet the A-high flop, you can't comfortably call, either, as villain could confidently bet anything when you check it to him including QQ-TT which you beat.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the best play is (both preflop and postflop) without a decent read.

[chopchoi]

What hands would he do this with? AA, for sure, and probably also AK and QQ. He might try it with JJ. AQ is unlikely,but not unfathomable. I don't think he has aces more than 25% of the time, so you want to get all of his chips in the pot. Just calling is the worst move. You can't give him a free shot at pairing his ace or spiking a set. If you push, he will almost certainly fold AQ and JJ, and may fold AK and QQ also. I would re-raise the amount of his bet, just to make it easier for him to call, then push the flop no matter what.

I NEVER fold kings pre-flop. There have just been to many times that I was certain I was up against aces, called anyway, and he didn't have them (I would guess about 2/3 of the time).

[schwza]

i'd call and c/r all-in on any non-A flop. pushing now lets him get away from AK/QQ/JJ, which you don't really want.

[Ghazban]

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i'd call and c/r all-in on any non-A flop. pushing now lets him get away from AK/QQ/JJ, which you don't really want.

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What are you doing if there's an ace on the flop? Check/folding?

[schwza]

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i'd call and c/r all-in on any non-A flop. pushing now lets him get away from AK/QQ/JJ, which you don't really want.

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What are you doing if there's an ace on the flop? Check/folding?

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yeah, didn't read the rest of the thread or i'd have known to answer that....

i'll check/call one small bet (up to ~25), but i'm probably just check-folding. i don't see villain betting a hand like QQ/JJ - he'll probably be happy to just show it down. i might make a ~25 blocking bet on the river, b/c if it's been checked down that far he probably has JJ/QQ and will call.

[Ghazban]

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i'd call and c/r all-in on any non-A flop. pushing now lets him get away from AK/QQ/JJ, which you don't really want.

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you doing if there's an ace on the flop? Check/folding?

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, didn't read the rest of the thread or i'd have known to answer that....

i'll check/call one small bet (up to ~25), but i'm probably just check-folding. i don't see villain betting a hand like QQ/JJ - he'll probably be happy to just show it down. i might make a ~25 blocking bet on the river, b/c if it's been checked down that far he probably has JJ/QQ and will call.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is weak. You lose your stack to AA if there's no ace on the flop (which there probably won't be as he's got two of the aces) and you give up if opponent isn't as terrified of the ace as you are and bets at it. I really should do the math behind it (with some assumptions) but I'm trying to do 3 things at once right now; I will post that later this evening-- maybe I'll be surprised and your line will be EV-maximising, but my gut instinct is that it isn't.

[MuckerFish]

Fold most likely your best bet, where'd I hear that "3rd raise/ivory snow/pure aces" thing from....? But regardless..
I think this is a push or fold thing anyway. You're out of position, and I like to limit myself to one mistake per hand. If you just call, too many tough decisions from there on: on a raggy board you bet, get raised - folding now? (any bet on your part likely pot commits you, as calling preflop puts ~30% of your stack in and any bet on your part should bring it to at least 50%) Check-fold the flop? Seems silly if you called preflop since doing so gives you 2:1 for a 7:1 chance of hitting your set, and the small stacks remaining ruin your implied odds. You get my point, too many tough decisions from there on, so push or fold. If you push and are up against AA, so be it. If he gets away from a lessor hand, better to win a small pot than lose your stack. (Besides taking it down here is a win of about 30% of your stack anyway-not shabby). Seems to me you can probably find a better hand than this one to try to squeeze a few more dollars out of. Never under-estimate the value of position in NL.

[Ghazban]

All right, I did some math using a pretty narrow set of assumptions and the results surprised me so either I did the math wrong or my instincts were just way off in this case.

Anyway, the assumptions are as follows:

1) we call preflop, so there's $73 in the pot and the shortest of the two stacks remaining is $63 so there's a total of $63 that can be bet postflop
2) we will check/fold any flop containing an ace and both be all-in on any other flop (whether this be by leading out or checkraising all-in is immaterial)
3) villain has exactly AA, QQ, JJ, or AK. I ignore the case of him having KK as its a push in that case and a fluke 4-flush could go either way.
4) I'm not specifically treating cases where we or the opponent flop a set, straight, or flush. Somebody let me know if that's important enough to treat or if ignoring it doesn't change the math significantly.

The total EV of the situation from the flop on is 1/26*(8*(EV vs. AK) + 6*(EV vs. AA) + 6*(EV vs. QQ) + 6*(EV vs. JJ)) because there are 8 ways for him to have AK, 6 ways for each of AA, QQ, and JJ (the 1/26 is just a normalizing factor).

If he has AK:
An ace will flop and we will check/fold 18% of the time. 82% of the time, we will get all-in as an 85% favorite, making the EV: .82*[.85*(136)-(.15)*63] = +87.0

If he has AA:
An ace will come on the flop 12% of the time and we will check/fold. The other 88% of the time, we get all-in as a 10% favorite, making the EV: .88*[.10*(136)-(.90)*63] = -37.9

If he has QQ:
An ace will flop and we will check/fold 24% of the time. 76% of the time, we will get all-in as a 90% favorite, making the EV: .76*[.90*(136)-(.10)*63] = +88.2

If he has JJ, we get the exact same answer as for QQ (EV of +88.2)

Therefore the total EV is 1/26*[8*87.0 + 6*(-37.9) + 6*(88.2) + 6*(88.2)] = +$58.7

I probably screwed something up in there somewhere (I'm sure pzhon will spot it)....


Anyway, the bottom line is that this is a much better play than I thought it'd be, despite check/folding the best hand some of the time.

Any corrections are welcome.

[MLerra]

I think most people tend to agree that getting it all in preflop is ideal here, but hard to do against something that you beat.

This is where I'd go for the minraise preflop. If someone 3-bets with JJ, QQ, or AK, they are most certainly not going to fold to a minraise of $20 in a pot that has already $80+. At that point, after they call, the pot is $110 or so, BB has $47 left, and you can very easily milk it out of him the rest of the way. The other option is that they get ticked at the minraise, and just go all-in. Even better.

[poboy]

I'm certainly not a math whiz but how can AA vs KK be -37 an KK vs QQ be +88, I would think the numbers would be very similar. Also given the preflop action I think you will see AA substantially more often than QQ. JMO