I want to stick my head in the sand with this KK hand.

Sadly, I puke, cry, and call at the same time. I think people are exaggerating the possible draws on board. No flush draws, only a staggered straight draw. Do you think Q9 stays in preflop with the reraise? It's be hard to. You may be facing two pair, OESD, or AJ. Two of those 3 you're ahead, one you're pretty far behind. I call and pray.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
CO leads for 1400 into the 2500 pot....

Hero raises to 3400....folds back to CO who pushes.

Get out now or did we come to far to look back?

[/ QUOTE ]

No looking back now. Villain could have a draw plus overcards. You have outs against 2 pair.

When you raised with that board, did you think villain would fold? The push was pretty predictable. That's why this ia called an action flop.

As I said, with this board, you kind of need to decide ahead of time whether to play for all your chips or fold.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
You may be facing two pair, OESD, or AJ. Two of those 3 you're ahead, one you're pretty far behind. I call and pray.

[/ QUOTE ]

Villain could also have a set.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You may be facing two pair, OESD, or AJ. Two of those 3 you're ahead, one you're pretty far behind. I call and pray.

[/ QUOTE ]

Villain could also have a set.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, yes he could, and I don't know why I overlooked that. If that's the case, you're way way way behind, but still have the 2 Kings and runner runner straights. However, I think I put all my chips in here. TPGK would bet like this here, and an aggressive player with an OESD would as well. If I'm villian and I have a set, I bet here anyway as well. I think I reraise to define my hand even further, but that would pretty much committ you, so I think 70% of the time I push.

[DVO]

When the action gets to you PF there is ~800 in the pot already. Raise to more than 600; I would make it 900 or 1000. Look at it from the limpers' perspectives, you are giving them good odds to call. Narrow the field. It's not a disaster if they all fold and you pick up ~650 uncontested.

as played, that flop is tough. Raise the flop to 3000 and see what he does. You're probably still ahead here. Lots of players make this play with the pair/draw combo.

[People_Mover]

I made a crying call and Villian indeed showed Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] for flopped nuts in my mouth and my runner runner did not come. It's difficult to put someone on Q/9o [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

Oh well, take notes, move on.

[bugstud]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
can we ban everyone that said raise a lot more?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, this isn't the WPT forum.

Why would you raise to 4xBB at 3 limpers with KK? Are you afraid no one would call 5xBB?

[/ QUOTE ]

because I don't want to have to make it that high to pwn limpers, either.

[Ben5505]

Sucks he had the Q9, but he was getting a good price on his money by the time action was on him. 1950 in the pot with 450 to call....over 4 to 1. Hate the outcome though.

[Proofrock]

[ QUOTE ]
can we ban everyone that said raise a lot more?

[/ QUOTE ]

3 limpers to you, plus the blinds => 675 in the pot. You make it 600, so when it gets back to the first limper you've given him 1275:450 to all, or almost 3 to 1. Worse, the last two limpers then are given ~4:1 or 5:1 odds to call. Unless t450 represents a significant amount of the limpers' stacks (in which case they probably wouldn't have limped preflop anyway), this raise just creates a big pot -- you have position, sure, and KK is certainly best preflop, but unless a king or an ace flops you're likely to lose a sizeable portion of your stack.

Compare this to raising to t900 -- the first limper is now being offered 1575:750, roughly 2 to 1. The limpers are put to a serious test (because the raise represents a sizeable portion of their stack) and are no longer being offered enticing odds. At the very least this should thin the field. Who knows, AJ or 88 might think their hand is good and decide to push (I see this happen surprisingly often).

You need to accumulate chips pretty quickly in these tournaments, but so does everybody else. A 4xBB raise just introduces unnecessary risk. If you get 2 limpers who call the raise to t900, your opponents have put more into the pot than they had with the 4xBB raise, and at the same time you have a better chance of winning the pot. If you get just 1 limper your increased equity should make up for the 600 chips that are "missing" from the pot, and if everybody folds then you've just added t675 chips to your stack.

If you're willing to go broke with an overpair (which you almost have to do in a tournament like this given your stack size), you should at least make it more correct to do so by making the pot bigger preflop. Otherwise, if you're just going to raise to 4xBB practically guaranteeing that the four limpers will be joining you, you might as well just limp KK and play it for set value.

-J.A.