KK Hand for review

[hockey1]

Nothing spectacular, but maybe those are the hands that you need to know how to play best.

2nd hand of a Party $30 SNG, so just about everyone has a stack of 800. CO lost the first hand and has a stack of 600. Blinds 10/15. I'm in MP, dealt KK. One limper to me. I raise to 50. CO, BB, and limper call.

Flop: 9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif6 /images/graemlins/heart.gifJ /images/graemlins/diamond.gif Checked to me. I bet the pot. Only CO calls.

Turn: 4 /images/graemlins/club.gif I bet 340, putting CO all-in. He calls.

Comments on all streets welcome.

[DougBrennan]

Looks good here. I might have bet a bit more pre-flop but the flop and turn bets seem correct to me, and I don't sense you are in any trouble. I'm guessing he paired up a J or 9 and exited quickly.

[hockey1]

What's the rationale for betting more preflop? Obviously I'd like some action here. Is there some guideline I should be following?


[ QUOTE ]
I'm guessing he paired up a J or 9 and exited quickly.

[/ QUOTE ]

You guess exactly right.

[DougBrennan]

I'd like to bet enough to discourage the medium to low Aces from calling. And I'm not talking a huge bet, but there's already been one limper if I remember correctly, so maybe T80 or T100 is what I'd throw in. You're not going to chase AK to AJ in most cases, and you're still going to have to be careful if an A falls on the flop with no K, but make those lesser Aces pay a little more for chasing when they shouldn't.

Ideally, you would like to play this pot heads-up with someone; 3 other limpers offers too many opportunities for someone to catch some stupid two pair that should have never seen the light of day.

There might be some who would advocate a raise pre-flop more on the order of T200-300, and given that this was Party, you might still get a call.

[Scooterdoo]

You played the hand just fine.

With a hand like KK you have three choices, limp, modest raise, a large raise (which includes all-in of course). You limp if you want maximum callers and don't want anyone to get any reads on you. The downside is that you don't get any reads on anyone else. You make a modest raise if you still want callers, but you want to build the pot a bit AND you want to get junk to trash their hands and give the blinds a decision to make, since if you don't bet much/anything you can be up against anything and it's more difficult to figure out what you're up against when the flop comes. By modest this could mean 2-5x the BB. It really depends on the table and what you think would be the minimum required to get junk hands to fold. You can make a big bet or go all-in if you would be happy taking what's already in the pot if everyone folds. If you wouldn't be happy with the pot as is, you probably don't want to waste KK by betting too much. Of course, if you do get callers with any of these strategies you need to be very careful if an A falls or if there is a clear set possibility, flush or straight draw on board.