KK

[JMarks]

Ive come across a situation many times where i have KK in a pot or no limit game, an early player raises I reraise and then they shove all in. Almost always this person has AA. Does anyone just lay down KK preflop?

[happyjaypee]

I'm not good enought to do that in ring games yet. However, I have folded them on some specific occasion in tourney. Was shortstack on the bubble and two players covering me went all-in before I acted. I mucked and made the money.

-Happy [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Matt Flynn]

As always, it depends on the opponent and the smaller stack size. If you've only got 25x the blinds or less, just look for the obvious tell (including a player who never goes all in preflop except with AA or KK). Otherwise shove it in. Them's the breaks.

[rigoletto]

It depends on the oponent of course, but when someone raise first it's not automatic AA in my experience. I'm more worried when somebody in EP limp-reraises. This is usually AA.

[The Prince]

JP,

yeah but would you have made more $$$ in the long run had you played them?

IME, probably.

[MD_]

I think it depends more on how large your shortest stack is. If you're very short (tripling up won't help much) just fold and pray one of the other guys busts. If you're stack is shortest, but it's close to the others, you probably gain tremendously by tripling up. In that case, call.

-MD

[Ray Zee]

its not what hand you have, its what hand they most likely have. so count the hands he would do this with. then make the decision based on that, and never on what you have just because it looks pretty.
i fold them almost every time they are beat before the flop and are reraised.

[J2Joe]

I try not to commit too much of my stack when I reraise if both of our money is deep. I remember one situation where I threw away KK before the flop. My opponent opened the $5 blind for $100. I raised $500. He went over the top for about 1200 and I only had about 400 left. I know my feeling was right because he showed me AA after I threw my hand away. I could have raised $200 or even $300 and felt a lot better about the lay down because I wasn’t so committed. Now if my stack is short in relation to the games average pot size then is is hard to imagine a situation where I would not want all my chips in the pot before the flop. The key to perfecting your game to make a lay down like this is to get feelings about your players. So much of no limit depends on the situation and the player.
It has not been my experience that a lot or real money players will call huge raises with anything but big pairs, and even less will reraise without KK or better. However there are definate exceptions and they can make you a lot of money.
With a hand like KK, I want to win a huge pot if possible. So I think a medium sized raise or reraise is called for before the flop. I don’t mind seeing the flop if I am heads up and I made my opponent pay a decent amount. If he has AK and flops an A then so be it. The object of no limit is to win huge pots so I don’t mind losing a few in the building process.

[angelo alba]

OK, as usual, I'm confused.

Yeah I know that at one WSOP T.J. went all-in with KK during an early round and busted against some guy with AA; still something doesn't feel quite right.

If this is a NL ring game what are the reasons (other than remembering TJ's disaster ) that you wouldn't go all in with KK?

I mean given chip stacks which are not so disparate that either you or the raiser are soon going bust.

We're talking most likely ending up heads up, right? So, um...how many hours would you have to play against this guy to realize that he's a super rock and would never open-raise from EP unless he had AA?

Is he a regular at your table? Or have you observed that he always bites his left thumbnail when he has AA?

Or are you simply trying to get more money into the pot by slowplaying KK, AND isolating AND raising for information ?

I suppose you're counting on your moderate raise to get all JJ's and Ace rags to fold right? How much do you advice one should plunk down in the pot to do that?

(Psychologically you MIGHT scare them more with a moderate or perhaps even a tiny raise than if you went all-in -- though you are messing up everyone's odds better by going all in )

So, how much do you bet? 4 times the BB? 1/3 of your stack?

And MOST important of all, PRIOR to your raise, have you made the decision: "Aha! If he now goes all in, I'm folding ! "

I am befuddled [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]