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.