Chatting with a friend about losing with KK on the first hand

[Mr. Curious]

All-in with KK says:
You know what's crisp...

Mr. Curious says:
What is crisp?

All-in with KK says:
Going all-in pre-flop with pocket kings, getting called with 65 off-suit, and they flop two fives to knock you out

Mr. Curious says:
Why would someone go all in rather than just raise?

All-in with KK says:
Because it's a free tournament and people call ridiculous bets.

All-in with KK says:
Why wouldn't you want to go all in with kings when you feel you have an 85% chance of getting called?

Mr. Curious says:
because your tournament life is at stake and you want to make the most out of your kings. That is not saying that it is a bad play, just that all-in is not necessarily the best play.

All-in with KK says:
It's free man... it's all good. You get 3 people knocked out on the first hand and 2 more the next hand. I think it the best move... when you have aces or kings and you think you'll get called by one or more people when you push, you should do it

Mr. Curious says:
that is fine in that kind of tourney and probably any other situation

All-in with KK says:
In a real money tournament you don't want to be heads up with aces or kings?

All-in with KK says:
+EV!

Mr. Curious says:
I'll take it as long as I am willing to accept losing with it. Like if I was in the $10,000 World Series event and it was the first hand, I would proabably do it, but it would be tough to lose on the first hand, no matter how high the EV was

All-in with KK says:
Well, part of me sees that... but the other part is... man if you double up that first hand you're making it to the second day

All-in with KK says:
The buy-in shouldn't affect your decision making, should it?

Mr. Curious says:
Theoretically, it should not. However, it might if you are not psychologically ready for the game you are in.

Mr. Curious says:
I am not saying I would or would not play the hand, just that I would need some time to think about it. The mental devastation from losing the hand could cause such long term damage that the positive feeling from winning the hand would not balance it out.

[Shilly]

I don't really get what you're trying to say. It seems like you know that pushing is obviously the correct move, but you're afraid of the devastation of losing? Your friend is right here.

[tdarko]

so are you saying that pushing on the first hand with AA/KK is buy-in dependant? cause if you are then you are wrong and your friend is right.

the way you win tournements is by pushing +EV situations no matter if its the first hand or the last hand and no matter the buy-in, if the buy-in is affecting your play then then it is outside your bankroll and its the wrong tourny for you.

your friend is right and tell him to get over it.

[bobdibble]

You have made a lot of these kind of posts recently. It seems that you need to really need to work on internalizing how you make $ in poker.

I strongly suggest re-reading the intro sections of TOP again and reading Inside the Poker Mind.

You really need to work on overcoming the internal conflict you have between EV and variance if you want to be a successful player.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
The mental devastation from losing the hand could cause such long term damage that the positive feeling from winning the hand would not balance it out.


[/ QUOTE ]


Well...in my situation it wasn't the first hand...but I'll tell my little tale anyway because it's close enough.



We're early in the 2nd level of the WSOP main-event.
It's my first trip to Vegas (and my first WSOP obviously).

I'm at the same table as Johnny Chan for crying out loud.
Welcome to the big time!!


I have 18k in chips (having just doubled-up a few hands ago with set of Q's to cripple a guy with AA).


I get KK in MP.
Blinds 50/100.
Very tight player UTG with 12k in chips bets 300.
I raise to 1k.
Back to him. And he re-raises to 5k.


At this point I positively KNOW that this guy has AA.
But I tell myself that he could just have QQ perhaps...or be getting frisky with AK for all I know (he's been tight...but maybe he just hasn't had any hands...also, I was a bit aggressive to start so maybe he thought he could bluff me out).


Anyway....I push all-in (I do have him covered by 6k at least) and he insta-calls with AA.
No help for either of us and I lose the hand.


No....it didn't eliminate me.
But it obviously was a lot of chips.
I went from 18k to 6k like THAT (snaps fingers).

And I was hardly devastated.

I pushed all-in with KK and whether he called me with AA or with 93o I was prefectly aware of the chance of losing the hand.

There was nothing devastating about it.
I lost a big hand in the world's largest poker tournament.
Oh well.


(FWIW - I hung in there for about 10 hours on my shortened stack before I got knocked out. Johnny Chan got knocked out about 10 minutes later).

[Mr. Curious]

[ QUOTE ]
I pushed all-in with KK and whether he called me with AA or with 93o, I was prefectly aware of the chance of losing the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was pretty much my point. As long as you are fully aware of the consequences of your actions (heck, you could have held 93o), then the end result of the hand will not have nearly as strong an impact on your psyche. Even if the other guy had flipped over 93o, because you were aware that you could possible lose, you would not have had a Helmuth-ian eruption if they had cracked your kings.