Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

Prima 100 NL BB .50/$1 blinds

Hero has around 120 and has been playing pretty tight. Villain has been playing conservatively as well and has hero covered. Both hero and villain have been at the table for an hour or so.

Hero is dealt black kings UTG and raises to $6.

Folded around to villain in SB who makes it $16.


Now if he had raised it to $20 or $24 I'd feel a whole lot better about pushing or re-raising. Villain has a PFR of 2.3 (428 hands).

A PFR of 2.3 means his raising standards are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs and sometimes AKo or TT basically.

A rock like this has re-raising standards of AA, KK, and sometimes QQ. These types DO NOT re-raise with AKs or AKo.

Now I've got a PFR of 4 at this table right now. I don't know if this guy has been paying any attention, but he seems like he knows what he's doing. So when I put in a big raise UTG, what in the hell can this guy re-raise me with out of the SB?

AA, KK, maybe QQ.

I'm thinking QQ raises a bit more here to shut me out or figure out where he stands. That or just calls. I actually think that most 2.3 PFR would probably just call with QQ out of the SB versus a big UTG raise. So that leaves the other KK and of course AA.



So I just called, fairly certain I was up against AA.


My plan was to play for set value + small chance he does something on the flop that leads me to believe he doesn't have AA. But if the flop came T high and he bet 3/4 of the pot I wouldn't have even blinked before folding.


FWIW, 9 times out of 10 I push KK here.



Thoughts and comments?

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

i think you should make the decision to push PF or fold. id lean towards folding, since you seem to be convinced about your read.

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

He can stack his opponent if he hits a set.

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

For only $10 more you are getting odds to hit your set. You could also flop an OESD or some other weird hand that he could play passively and let you win with. So I definitely don't fold. And I would never push in this situation. If you are ever leaning towards pushing here (i.e. you think your hand is good), please check/raise all-in on the flop so that you can get another pot-sized bet out of QQ and possibly even get him pot committed to call your all-in. Pushing preflop is not good, in my opinion (and I believe in the opinion of others who are much better than I am.)

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

You can be nearly certain he has AA here. Normally I wouldn't call that much to play for set value, but the fact that you can pretty much put your opponent on an exact hand as opposed to just a range of hands helps out a lot (not to mention being in position). You don't have to worry about draws, you can get away from set over set, and you can presumably steal the pot if you get a really scary flop (QQx) and you don't screw up and make it look like a bluff.

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

Now my big problem with making these reads and laydowns is that you rarely get to confirm if your read was correct by going to showdown. Not this time.

I flopped the nuts on a Kh 3c 2c board, all of the money went in, running clubs, yada yada yada, and my read of AA was painfully correct.

Thanks for the responses.

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

So you played it well, got bad beat (always happens when we play it well, right?), and hopefully have some food for thought on why pushing that situation with KK is not a good play. Sounds good.

Re: Interesting Prima 100NL KK hand with a read
 

A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] i presume?
Tough break, but great read.