How many callers do you want with KK

[TheCat]

NLHE, 30 still in, top 10 pay.
You're short stacked but not desperately so with 6 to 10xBB, you get KK UTG. How many callers do you want here? I think one or two callers is ideal, zero is OK, three is worrying and four or more is bad.
Assume you go all in on the flop whatever lands irrespective of the betting in front.

Do you concur?

[MLG]

You want 1 caller and no A on the flop in my opinion. With 6BB I think I move in before the flop, with 10 I make a normal raise, maybe even a mini-raise.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
You want 1 caller and no A on the flop in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Picky, picky....assuming nobody has AA, I am fine with whoever else wants to pay to call me. You are still fairly far from the bubble, so chipEV and $$EV are still pretty close. From past discussions, I know that I may be in the minority on this board, but if you ask Fossilman, I bet he agrees with me.

[TheCat]

I'm very probably going to get all my chips in here either before or after the flop. Seems to me with three or more callers you chance of being outdrawn are so high it just isn't worth and +EV considerations.

[MLG]

With three or more callers your looking at quadrupling up, so while you are going to win less, you will win so much more when you do you have to play it. It is +EV, and not really that close at all.

[Sam T.]

I'm with Soss. With an Ace-free flop and pocket kings I'll take all the customers I can get my hands on. I might lose from time to time, but tripling through or better is a good thing.

[Toro]

I want 4 callers with the following hands:

1. AK
2. AK
3. AQ
4. AQ

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm very probably going to get all my chips in here either before or after the flop. Seems to me with three or more callers you chance of being outdrawn are so high it just isn't worth and +EV considerations

[/ QUOTE ]

Then you don't understand EV. If you were closer to the bubble, it might be different, but you are still a ways away, so you still need to accumulate chips. Tripling up is better than doubling up...quadrupling up is even better.

[TheCat]

I have a hard time agreeing with the majority opinion here.
Lets not worry about what comes on the flop. I'm just concentrating on pitching my pre flop raise to get the optimum number of callers. If I get zero callers I win some money but not much. That’s OK but I could do better. If I get a large number of callers, say 9 then I don’t stand much chance of winning the pot and I’ve either lost most of my stack or all of it, usually all of it. When I do win with a lot of callers I’m in good shape to get into the money. Most of the time though, I’m out of the tourney, which is what I’m trying hard to avoid. There must be some number between zero and nine which is best here. I might try the Poker Theory boys see what they think.

[SossMan]

I know its counter intuitive, but trust me on this. You must first understand how close chipEV and $EV is when you are still far from the bubble. While you may be out of the tourney more times when you have more callers, the chips you win greatly increase your chances of finishing higher in the money. The more top heavy the payout structure, the more callers you want.
There are some adjustments to be made when your competition is very, very bad, but against normal competition, this foregoing is definitely the case.