Can I fold KK heads-up?

I was back at my favorite small poker room, the Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip, playing 4-8 Hold'em ($1 and $2 blinds). In one hand, I was heads-up against a good player pre-flop with KK and thought I might be up against AA. Ugh.


The hand:


One player limps in early position. I'm in middle position with KcKd. Of course, I raise for value. Everybody folds to the cutoff who makes it 3-bets. Hmmmm, I haven't seen him do that in a couple hours of play. He seems to have good hand selection since he hasn't played many hands. He raises pre-flop occasionally and seems to have a good overall game. I think his 3-betting requirements are very tight (AA and KK for sure. QQ maybe. JJ, TT, and AK are possible but less likely). Everybody folds to me. I decide to just call. We see the flop heads-up.


The flop is: 9c,7h,3c


I bet. He raises. I get a really bad feeling. I think he's got AA and I'm drawing to two outs for a set or catching two running clubs to make a flush (assuming he doesn't have the Ac!). It's just a gut feeling based on how he's playing his hand. I call.


The turn is: 9c,7h,3c,Js


No King. No club. I check. I felt as weak as that check looks. He bets and I call.


The river is: 9c,7h,3c,Js,Td


Another bad card. I'm not only beat by AA but also by JJ,TT, and 99- almost all the pairs he could reasonably 3-bet pre-flop with and maybe a couple he couldn't. If he's holding a pocket pair, I can only expect to beat QQ and split the pot with KK.


I check. He bets. And I call.


I'm not too proud of how I played this hand. Checking and calling with KK isn't my usual game. So, is there any spot in the hand where I should be playing more aggressively? Or, should I be willing to go with my "gut feeling" and laydown this hand at some point, especially on the river when I'm beaten by even lower pocket pairs than my KK?

Unfortunately, my read was correct. He had AA and took the pot.


Even worse, I wasn't willing to go with my read/gut feeling and my "strong" KK hand cost me a few bets that I may have been able to save.

In a limit game, i'm going to have to see that AA almost everytime. Prob not with that board though. Like you said the only hand you beat is AK , or tie another KK. I think you had a good read and saved some bets but you should prob look him up when you are that passive. You never put any heat on him. You raised preflop, then didnt cap it. And called his flop raise. I'd cap preflop and 3 bet the flop, but call me crazy. I think you played this hand extremely passively. I'm losing a lot of chips with this hand headsup. SK

assuming he will only 3 bet with the hands you mentioned here's how it breaks down in a simple fashion:

the hands you beat are AK, QQ and you tie KK-

there are 15 ways he can have these hands.

(AK=8, KK=1, QQ=6)

the hans you lose to are AA JJ TT 99

there are 15 ways he could have any of these hands.

(AA=6, JJ=3, TT=3, 99=3)


Looks like your call wasn't bad at all in fact given that you were getting about 9to1 (i didn't count) it's not even close.


Of course it's a little more tricky since he may check down his AK but even if you knew he would, you still you would have six combinations beat and one for the tie.


Finally the way the hand was played, he could have raised with AQs (especially clubs) which would have given you even more hope.

My feeling would be to 3-bet on the flop. If he has AA, he'll probably make it four bets (unless your image would raise 99 in mid position with a limper), and you can get away from it before it gets expensive (or at least know better where you stand).


On the turn, if you were tricky and you think your image is good enough you could check-raise when the J hits, representing JJ. That would be a reasonable read on his part, unless you think your opponent would raise JJ on the flop against a pre-flop raise and being bet into.

There's passive, and then there's plain commonsense careful--I would describe your play on this hand as the latter.


One thing I would want to know before commenting further on your play is, what does he think YOU'VE got? Which depends, of course on what he's seen you do with your first two cards over the whole session. If you've raised only with good cards, and he knows that, and it's his first 3-bet in a couple of hours, well . . .


Also, if he's as tight as you've described him, he's probably not 3-betting only two other players--one a raiser--with a drawing hand.


Finally I'd like to think I'd have reraised him on the flop to see where he was, but if he'd just called instead of reraised, where am I then?


So I guess I'm saying . . . I have no intelligent comments to contribute whatsoever. I don't deserve to live.

One thing you could have done that no one has mentioned is to ASK your opponent if he has aces. Even if you don't know him well enough to gauge his reaction 100%, it still would have given you more information than you had to start with (which was a strong gut feeling).


Apart from that...yes, I'd say check raising or 3 betting the flop to see if he played back would have been a better move than check-call.

After cutoff came over the top of you preflop, and you were sure he was there with AA, I would go to check and call mode. Your KK is to big to throw away, but not so big that you should be splashing chips around after being raised twice by cutoff.


Cutoff hadn't played may hands and came over the top of you twice. Smells like ROCK to me. You're heads up, and the pot won't get that much bigger bigger as it's down to the two of you.


Checking and calling would have saved you one small bet on the flop on a pot you weren't that sure about winning. Now, if you had dumped your hand on the flop, it may have opened the doorway for him bluffing so that wasn't much of an option. But seeing cutoff is playing like a rock, there isn't much danger of that. Rocks do not risk their money.


It was possible, he was in there with AK, but as you say, you can't know that until the showdown, plus you have KK so it's unlikely, AA has to be the hand he holds.


Other than leading the betting on the flop there wasn't much else you could have done differently, and then it's debatable as to much that one small bet is worth in this situation.

Who says that the opponent is necesarily going to 4 bet with Aces? He might just call- then what? Now if you bet the turn and fold after you get raised you only save yourself half a big bet when you're beaten as compared to check calling the whole way, but you 100% eliminate your chances for the pot- you have to be right almost every time for the fold to be correct.