Am I Playing These Wrong???

[HighStakesPro]

This is simply not true. Playing KK the way you did is not "unthinkable" at all. Having just one opponent is the BEST time to slowplay big pairs in this situation. If you are against two or more opponents, you pretty much have to raise, but againnst an EP raiser, while raising is still a perfectly acceptable play, slowplaying can be very effective. It will become even more effective when you move up to higher limits. Plus, when an ace flops, you can just check and call and will actually fare better than if you had reraised preflop, because it will be much less obvious what your hand is. If your opponent has a lower pocket pair, he will continue to bet it because you have shown no strength and may just be drawing or calling on middle or bottom pair. Reraising is a safe play and can't be criticized, but if you want to really get to the next level, you should try and vary your play somewhat and employ deception. If you always make the same plays with the same hands, observant players will be able to put you on hands.

[shant]

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This is simply not true. Playing KK the way you did is not "unthinkable" at all. Having just one opponent is the BEST time to slowplay big pairs in this situation. If you are against two or more opponents, you pretty much have to raise, but againnst an EP raiser, while raising is still a perfectly acceptable play, slowplaying can be very effective. It will become even more effective when you move up to higher limits. Plus, when an ace flops, you can just check and call and will actually fare better than if you had reraised preflop, because it will be much less obvious what your hand is. If your opponent has a lower pocket pair, he will continue to bet it because you have shown no strength and may just be drawing or calling on middle or bottom pair. Reraising is a safe play and can't be criticized, but if you want to really get to the next level, you should try and vary your play somewhat and employ deception. If you always make the same plays with the same hands, observant players will be able to put you on hands.

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This is awful advice. Do you only reraise with KK? There's all the deception you need.

Edit: Just to elaborate a little more, there is a time to "slowplay" (I hate that word) big hands preflop, and it's usually when you have been 3-bet and capping will give away your hand. The problem with this is most times you are in this situation, your opponent will also have a strong hand that they'd like to go to war with. Also, as you move up in limits, you get into a lot more blind and HU wars and your capping range will be a lot wider, so it still doesn't say that much about your hand to cap.

The most important aspect of all this is VALUE and getting tricky often with these big pairs puts you in situations to lose it.

[HighStakesPro]

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This is awful advice. Do you only reraise with KK? There's all the deception you need.

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Typical players reraise in this spot only with AA, KK, QQ, or maybe AK. This is a narrow enough range of hands to allow the preflop raiser to play his hand more profitably than if he had no idea what your hand was, which is the case when you just call. If the preflop raiser is from late position, THEN your reraise gives less away because you would do that with a wider variety of hands.

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Edit: Just to elaborate a little more, there is a time to "slowplay" (I hate that word) big hands preflop, and it's usually when you have been 3-bet and capping will give away your hand. The problem with this is most times you are in this situation, your opponent will also have a strong hand that they'd like to go to war with. Also, as you move up in limits, you get into a lot more blind and HU wars and your capping range will be a lot wider, so it still doesn't say that much about your hand to cap.

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In the situation you describe, just calling a three-bet instead of capping, the situation is essentially the same (out of position against a preflop raiser heads up with a big pair), except you have already raised preflop and your opponent will be able to rule out hands like small pocket pairs, suited connectors, AXs, QJ/JT, and other such hands that people play from the blinds but don't raise preflop (unless you're talking about cutoff/button vs blinds play, which is a completely different story; I assume you're talking about a legitimate raise.)

Furthermore, while I can see why many people might disagree with my advice, I doubt that it is "awful" because Ciaffone and Brier suggest slowplaying in a similar situation in <u>Middle Limit Holdem Poker</u> on page 277, chapter 32, problem 10. The UTG player raised, you're on the button with AA, and the blinds look like they're about to fold. They say that "This is a perfect spot to slowplay preflop."

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The most important aspect of all this is VALUE and getting tricky often with these big pairs puts you in situations to lose it.

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Yes, value is important, but when you're only talking about one more small bet, it's probably worth it in this specific situation to call because the deception you are creating will often win you multiple small bets in the long run because you give away nothing about the strength of your hand. Plus, you can almost always go for the checkraise on the flop and get back the small bet you "lost" preflop. Yes, I agree that slowplaying like this in too many situations is a bad idea and will cost you value. If you had two or more opponents, or if your hand was QQ, reraising is probably better most of the time. But in some specific situations like this one, slowplaying can be very effective.

Edit: I accidentally referred to problem 8 in the book, but it is actually problem 10 that examines the situation I was talking about.

[shant]

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Typical players reraise in this spot only with AA, KK, QQ, or maybe AK. This is a narrow enough range of hands to allow the preflop raiser to play his hand more profitably than if he had no idea what your hand was, which is the case when you just call.

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You should add JJ/TT and sometimes AQs to that range. Also, how does a 3-bet make it easier for QQ-TT or dominated hands that hit a pair to play postflop? In my experience opponents do very little thinking about my range and more about their hand and the board.

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In the situation you describe, just calling a three-bet instead of capping, the situation is essentially the same (out of position against a preflop raiser heads up with a big pair), except you have already raised preflop and your opponent will be able to rule out hands like small pocket pairs, suited connectors, AXs, QJ/JT, and other such hands that people play from the blinds but don't raise preflop (unless you're talking about cutoff/button vs blinds play, which is a completely different story; I assume you're talking about a legitimate raise.)

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The situation is nowhere near the same. They have shown a lot of strength by 3-betting your raise, a lot more than a sismple preflop raise. You can be sure they will give you action postflop and "feigning weakness" will disguise your hand against a likely very strong hand.

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Furthermore, while I can see why many people might disagree with my advice, I doubt that it is "awful" because Ciaffone and Brier suggest slowplaying in a similar situation in <u>Middle Limit Holdem Poker</u> on page 277, chapter 32, problem 8. The UTG player raised, you're on the button with AA, and the blinds look like they're about to fold. They say that "This is a perfect spot to slowplay preflop."

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That's all well and good but I play online and I'm not sure when the blinds look like they'll fold.

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Yes, value is important, but when you're only talking about one more small bet, it's probably worth it in this specific situation to call because the deception you are creating will often win you multiple small bets in the long run because you give away nothing about the strength of your hand. Plus, you can almost always go for the checkraise on the flop and get back the small bet you "lost" preflop. Yes, I agree that slowplaying like this in too many situations is a bad idea and will cost you value. If you had two or more opponents, or if your hand was QQ, reraising is probably better most of the time. But in some specific situations like this one, slowplaying can be very effective.

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I agree with you here when talking about your raise being 3-bet as I feel it is a totally different situation. Even then, lately I have been told by very good players that I might as well just cap preflop.

[HighStakesPro]

Just something to think about, if you're adventurous enough in these situations and want to get as much value as possible from these type of hands, you can try a reraise preflop and then also checkraising the flop to get an extra small bet in. Then if you really want to be devious you can try checkraising the turn too! I wouldn't recommend this most of the time but it's an interesting idea, most of the hold'em literature that I've read says that when somebody raises you on the flop and then checks on the turn, it means they're weak because the turn is the more expensive street, so maybe give this idea a try.

[shant]

Yeah, I like the turn checkraise play. It's called a "screwplay" on these forums a lot. You raise preflop and hit the flop and it's HU. You bet and your opponent calls. The turn comes and you check, which looks like you've given up. In these aggressive games with bind wars, they will uually bet anything they have there. Then you checkraise them.

[bravos1]

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This is simply not true. Playing KK the way you did is not "unthinkable" at all. Having just one opponent is the BEST time to slowplay big pairs in this situation. If you are against two or more opponents, you pretty much have to raise, but againnst an EP raiser, while raising is still a perfectly acceptable play, slowplaying can be very effective. It will become even more effective when you move up to higher limits. Plus, when an ace flops, you can just check and call and will actually fare better than if you had reraised preflop, because it will be much less obvious what your hand is. If your opponent has a lower pocket pair, he will continue to bet it because you have shown no strength and may just be drawing or calling on middle or bottom pair. Reraising is a safe play and can't be criticized, but if you want to really get to the next level, you should try and vary your play somewhat and employ deception. If you always make the same plays with the same hands, observant players will be able to put you on hands.

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WEAK SAUCE!!!!
This is bad advice IMO and you are letting far too many hands here that you dominate off way to cheaply!