KK, did I fold correctly?

Playing at River Palms in Laughlin. 10 players, $1 blind, 1-5 spread anytime. Seated 4 to the left of button with pocket kings. Seat 2 raises blind $5, seat 3 re-raises $5, I call and 2 others limp in. Flop is A-8-4 rainbow. Seat 2 bets $5 and seat 3 raises $5. I fold. These 2 kicked each other on the turn and river and turned over JJ and QQ. I would have won. Did I do right?

Post-flop, yes. Pre-flop, you should have re-raised $5 and maybe the hand plays differently on the flop.

KK is worth another raise preflop. If you have done that, they may just check to the raiser instead of trying to pull some micky mouse crap on you...

You need to reraise before the flop. Since the first raise was made in the blind, your opponents are going to be thinking there was only one "real" raise and they can call with the same stuff they would call only one raise with. You need to disabuse them of this thought, especially since this is the last chance you will ever have to make them call incorrectly if they hit any piece of the flop. With no doubling of the bets on the turn, your opponents are going to get correct odds to chase down your kings all the way to the river with as little as bottom pair or a gutshot on the flop. Charge them dearly while they are still way behind. As Andy and James say, this also will keep the original reraiser from betting or raising into you unless he likes the flop, which makes him more passive and easier to read postflop.


In a game with this structure, you might try limp reraising before the flop with your best hands fairly often, in hopes of getting dead money in the pot against just a few opponents. When you limp with a big hand and noone obliges you by raising behind you before the flop, you are still in excellent position to raise a bet in front of you with your overpair or top pair on the flop in one last attempt to force your opponents into a calling error before the pot gets too big for them to make a mistake by calling. If everyone routinely calls your reraises preflop when you limp reraise, just give it up and limp with all your hands, only raising on the flop after everyone has a chance to miss. What you are doing is trying to avoid a crapshoot after making a huge pot early in the hand, where everyone is correct to always call to the river with anything. Once this happens, there is very little chance to outplay your opponents on the later streets, which is where most of your profit should be coming from.


In general with games of a single bet structure, I think you should play the first two rounds hyper aggressively when you have a chance to narrow the field with a likely best (but vulnerable) hand, and play the last two rounds pretty meekly if there are still many players in the pot and you haven't improved beyond one pair. If your opponents play well enough to notice this (which I seriously doubt), you can add some deception by playing your best draws the same way on the flop. If you are getting lots of callers on every flop, you should be playing your best draws very aggressively early in the hand anyway.


Whew boy, did I ramble on there. Anyway, those are just some thoughts on how to play in this silly 1-5 structure without a double bet round. Maybe someone who plays a game like this regularly will have something to add or correct some ignorant strategy error I have made here. I think you should try and find a hold'em game with a standard structure as possible, as this gives you more opportunity to outplay your opponents later in the hand.

LOL, oh yeah, and to answer your actual question, did you fold correctly on the flop, I would say yes. But your opponent was only able to outplay you on the flop because you didn't reraise him before the flop, which would have gotten your hand the respect it deserved on the flop.

You played fine.


Boy, are THEY lucky the 3 cold 3-bet callers don't have an Ace.

If these guys are going to assert themselves like this against 3 callers, just imagine what they are going to do to you if you had 3-bet and it got down to just the 3 of you? They will surely put you on a big pair and are MORE likely to move you off your hand when the Ace hits (someone who calls 2-raises cold is more likely to have an Ace than someone who 3-raises it).


BTW: lets say you had AK. Against these types of players when you have position, you'd be better off NOT raising the flop. Just let them raise themselves silly.


This sounds like a DANDY game.


- Louie