When its *Almost* Appropriate to Laydown KK preflop.

[Myst]

I dont have the exact HH but Ill give you the details.

$55 Sng. Blinds at 15/30. UTG+2 open raises to 95. Im in MP1 and I reraise to 275 with KK. A known, tight, solid player, with a poker prophecy win percentage of 46% over 300 games, minireraises to 430 from the BB, almost half his chip stack.
There is now 885 in the pot and its 155 to me to call.

The only hands that a tight/solid player would do that with from the BB is QQ+, with QQ being a huge stretch (10-20%). If the likely hood of him minireraising with QQ is even as low as 10%, that increases my expectation of winning this pot from 18.79% to a whopping 25.1%. If I reraised all in, and assuming I have zero folding equity, Im now trying to win 1425 by putting 695 in, giving me (2.05-1) pot odds, and meaning that I would need to expect to win this pot 32.7% of the time to make this profitible. From that standpoint, reraising all in is a bad -$EV play.

The problem, I find, lies in the situation. If he put the 3rd raise in by pushing all in, Im more inclined to call, because, even though the range is still QQ+, I would think QQ would be more likely (20-40%), and thus, would autocall.
However, because he miniraises, he now prices me in to hit my set. Even if I knew he had AA, the pot is already laying me 5.7-1 to call, plus an additional 540 of his stack if I hit. Current pot odds + implied odds (9.19-1) mean I have good odds to try to hit my set (7.5-1).

However, these metagames situations RARELY occur often enough in Sngs to even bother worrying about. In short, NEVER FOLD KK PREFLOP and you will never make a grevious mistake. I assure you, your hourly rate will remain the same.

Oh.... in the actual hand, I reraised all in and he had Aces. Next time, Im flat calling against that PARTICULAR opponent and gonna try to hit my set :P. But that wont happen for the next.... oh 500 Sngs.

[SumZero]

Ok here's a hand from one of my UB 5+.5 SNG tonight where I folded QQ PF and am not sure but think I may have folded KK PF too (but maybe not, I had to think for a while before folding QQ):

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (8 handed; hand 12) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

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

UTG (t1055)
UTG+1 (t3350)
<font color="#C00000">MP1 (t1470)</font>
<font color="#C00000">MP2 (t1545)</font>
Hero (t1280)
Button (t2000)
SB (t1420)
BB (t2880)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
UTG calls t30, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">MP1 raises to t60</font>, MP2 calls t60, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t315</font>, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, UTG folds, MP1 calls t255, <font color="#CC3333">MP2 raises all-in for t1545</font>, Hero folds, MP1 calls all in for t1470, MP2 returned t70.

Final Pot: t3330

Results in white below: <font color="#FFFFFF">
Tournament all-in showdown -- players show:
MP1 shows Jc Jh.
MP2 shows As Ac.

Flop (board: 6c 3s 8h):
Turn (board: 6c 3s 8h 2d):
River (board: 6c 3s 8h 2d 7d):
Showdown:
MP1 has Jc Jh 6c 8h 7d: a pair of jacks.
MP2 has As Ac 6c 8h 7d: a pair of aces.

MP2 wins t3330. </font>

The converter for some reason misses the re-raise all in and misses the call so hopefully people can understand my edits to the converter above.

[Winwood]

Seems like in a $5 tourney this laydown is giving a bit too much credit to your opponents? Did you have a read on these guys?

[SumZero]

No real read (12th hand), they hadn't done anything crazy in the first 11 hands.

But if I see the following:

P1 raises. P2 flat calls. P3 re-raises a lot. P1 flat calls. P2 now wakes up and re-raises all-in.

Then P2 has acted very suspiciously. Why did they flat call the first raise and only now when there has been a re-raise and a call of that re-raise does he decide to raise all-in? In my mind that is like the limp re-raise all-in move that screams AA, at least at low limit SNG.

[Winwood]

[ QUOTE ]
No real read (12th hand), they hadn't done anything crazy in the first 11 hands.

But if I see the following:

P1 raises. P2 flat calls. P3 re-raises a lot. P1 flat calls. P2 now wakes up and re-raises all-in.

Then P2 has acted very suspiciously. Why did they flat call the first raise and only now when there has been a re-raise and a call of that re-raise does he decide to raise all-in? In my mind that is like the limp re-raise all-in move that screams AA, at least at low limit SNG.

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally agree with your logic 100%. But haven't you ever seen donks do this with TT or AJ? They genuinely think they have the best hand (at least I assume that's their thinking, unless its some weird bluff).

My feeling is, in this situation, the number of times you get shown AA/KK compared to the number of times you get show KQs makes it a mistake to laydown QQ. But I could be way off.

[Jack Fate]

[ QUOTE ]
I dont have the exact HH but Ill give you the details.

$55 Sng.

[/ QUOTE ]

I only read this far, but it seems obvious to me you should not be folding.

[2callzU]

[ QUOTE ]
A known, tight, solid player, with a poker prophecy win percentage of 46% over 300 games, minireraises to 430 from the BB, almost half his chip stack.


[/ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ]
In short, NEVER FOLD KK PREFLOP and you will never make a grevious mistake. I assure you, your hourly rate will remain the same.


[/ QUOTE ] So you do have Poker Prophecy. Hmm. And you are reraising all in with a player who has a 46% win percentage and he minireraises you. Hmm. If you NEVER FOLD KK PREFLOP, then you don't know how to make a good laydown.

Number crunching aside. You are overanalyzing the situation like many of you analytical players do. The reraise SCREAMED pocket aces. And you felt it as well. Had you made this laydown, which you should have, you would have had plenty of chips to regroup and win. Plenty. Do you have no discipline? A laydown here would have been impressive. Why not trust your read in this situation?

Sometimes you have to use the "KISS" method, as quoted by Dan Harrington. This all comes down to a simple read, and a not so simple, but correct laydown. Put the odds calculator away on this one. Just because pot odds dictate a call, doesn't mean you MUST CALL or in your questionable situation, go all in (why? if anything call and try to spike the flop. Pot odds definately don't say go all in). You number crunching braniacs think so much you come full circle anyways.

[Karak567]

[ QUOTE ]
So you do have Poker Prophecy. Hmm. And you are reraising all in with a player who has a 46% win percentage and he minireraises you. Hmm. If you NEVER FOLD KK PREFLOP, then you don't know how to make a good laydown.


[/ QUOTE ]

You are so wrong but I don't have the time to tell you why.

If you are laying down KK preflop at a 55 or lower, then you need to re-evaluate your play.

[Myst]

Dan Harrington also says its never a mistake to never fold KK preflop.

And dont you dare call me a number cruncher and a braniac. I dont need to hear you talking to me in such a condescending fashion. Just because I analyze my post in that particular fashion doesnt mean Ive never trusted my intuition before. Ive made more than my fair share of 'moves'.

::sigh:: There are too many arrogant pricks on here.

P.S. Just to let you know, I still won the tournament.