KK: consider this

WARNING: FOLDING KK PRE-FLOP ARGUMENT

you raise from early position.

you get 3.5x re-raised. so at 25NL you raise to $1... get re-popped to $3.5,... then you 4 bet to $10 and villain shoves.

you look up his pre-flop re-raise % and its .09 and his all-in(w$sd) is 95%. say this is over 800-2500 hands.

he has AA. .09% is exactly AA and KK.

So fold to the 3-bet. Why would you 4-bet him to begin with? Why would you brng up this scenario though? Obviously it's probable there's some scenarios where you should fold KK preflop, but you very likely won't ever see them.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

so at 25NL you raise to $1... get re-popped to $3.5,... then you 4 bet to $10 and villain shoves.

This would almost never happen because villains that are like 30/.1 almost never size their 3-bets properly like this. Usually it's a minbet, but sometimes it's like $8 or just a shove or something ridiculous like that.

This makes your 4-bet size smaller, or prevents you from making it in the first place.

Originally Posted by Galapogos

So fold to the 3-bet. Why would you 4-bet him to begin with? Why would you brng up this scenario though?

yeah ... why 4 bet then. i dunno why i brought it up... i guess cuz the numbers obviously say he AA... but yet KK is so hard to get away from pre flop... and cuz i see KK vs AA all in pre often enough to make me think about it. and cuz i also see that re-raise % ALOT at 25NL.

Obviously it's probable there's some scenarios where you should fold KK preflop, but you very likely won't ever see them.

you mean like if i'm playing at a WSOP final table. i raise KK from EP... another donk like me flat calls... TJ Cloutier re-raises 7x and then sitting right next to him is a 5th chip stacked Phil Hellmuth who instantaneously gizms himself and double arm thrust/pushes his entire stack across the table pelting Fnord in the face with 100k chips... and then jumps up from his seat and screams "I am the greatest of all time!!!!!"

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

you mean like if i'm playing at a WSOP final table. i raise KK from EP... another donk like me flat calls... TJ Cloutier re-raises 7x and then sitting right next to him is a 5th chip stacked Phil Hellmuth who instantaneously gizms himself and double arm thrust/pushes his entire stack across the table pelting Fnord in the face with 100k chips... and then screams "I am the greatest of all time!!!!!"

wtf? taht's a zomg pump fist call

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

you mean like if i'm playing at a WSOP final table. i raise KK from EP... another donk like me flat calls... TJ Cloutier re-raises 7x and then sitting right next to him is a 5th chip stacked Phil Hellmuth who instantaneously gizms himself and double arm thrust/pushes his entire stack across the table pelting Fnord in the face with 100k chips... and then jumps up from his seat and screams "I am the greatest of all time!!!!!"

Obvious call. You are 100% likely to spike a king on him; he'll call you a fish and scream "How could you possibly go all in with two kings there????" before his head and testicles simultaneously explode and implode (respectively).

Never fold Kings. You will run into AA 1 in 44 times. 1 in 5 of those times you will win. Its very negative EV to fold KK.

Try this out.. fold KK preflop for a year and check your win rate.. go all the way with KK the next year. Check your bottom line.

Tj

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Never fold Kings. You will run into AA 1 in 44 times.

lol sorry where did you get that from?

4bet/ folding w/ kings seems almost always terrible.

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Never fold Kings. You will run into AA 1 in 44 times.

Now try the math on hands that 3 bet you.

and where the hell would you get 1 in 44???

Originally Posted by badgers

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Never fold Kings. You will run into AA 1 in 44 times.

lol sorry where did you get that from?

4bet/ folding w/ kings seems almost always terrible.

granted. i'm not saying its the right play everytime you get 4 bet shoved. it depends on the player and what he wants to get all pre flop.

i'm looking at 8 players right now with 1000 hands or more on them. 3 have PF re raise % of .09 or below. 1 guy is .05 with 100% all in sd%. the highest is 2.2 most others are between 1.8 and 1.1%.

the guys with 1.5% and below... what are they gonna 4bet you with? QQ? AK? especially when they are full buy in guys whose stats look reasonable.. ie not 40/25/6 maniacs.

i'm not really saying it's the right thing to do... EVER!

i'm mostly just thinking out loud.

so why are you even 3betting them if they're running at 0.5 pfr?

Originally Posted by badgers

so why are you even 3betting them if they're running at 0.5 pfr?

pre flop RE-RAISE

EP riases 3x. you re raise him3x. he shoves. he has the stats i'm talking about.

yeah why are we reraising a ridic tight player raising from EP in the first place?

this is a spot that comes up a lot more in full ring than in 6max I think as there are nittier regs.

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Never fold Kings. You will run into AA 1 in 44 times. 1 in 5 of those times you will win. Its very negative EV to fold KK.

Try this out.. fold KK preflop for a year and check your win rate.. go all the way with KK the next year. Check your bottom line.

Tj

could you please elaborate a little bit on the math here, im very curious.

Originally Posted by badgers

yeah why are we reraising a ridic tight player raising from EP in the first place?

this is a spot that comes up a lot more in full ring than in 6max I think as there are nittier regs.

at 25NL... i see many players (25-40%... gestimate)who run from 32/19 to 18/14 BUT only pre flop RE-raise around 1% of the time or less.

i'm just saying the pre flop re-raise stat COULD be a good indicator of what they want to get it all in with pre flop. especially if their all in w$sd percent is also 95% or higher. so if someone is this tight and 4bet shoves and we have KK... what could he have based on those stats? QQ? AK?

AA, KK, QQ and AKs, AKo = pre flop RE-raise of 2.5%
AA, KK, QQ = 1.35%
AA, KK = .09%

you have to remember... the guy we are up against WANTS to get it all in on a 4 bet shove.

so why 3 bet if he raises UTG or UTG+1. well he might want to see a flop with his AK, AQ, QQ, JJ, TT. obviously, we have alot of profit to be made post flop if he cold calls us instead of 4 bet shoves.

look, i'm not saying this is my new way of playing KK. "Fold KK to 4 bet shoves!!" everything is always player dependent... and my scenario deals with people who fit a certain criteria. and in 42k hands... i've seen enough of these types to open up the discussion. folding KK preflop is probably 100% absurd at 100NL on up. i'm not their yet.

i think its an interesting discussion given the stats and scenario.

poker stove won't do .9%... which is exactly AA and KK (.0045*2).
AA, KK, QQ = 1.35%

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 49.995% 46.10% 03.89% 61573380 5199546.00 { KK }
Hand 1: 50.005% 46.11% 03.89% 61587240 5199546.00 { QQ+ }

so its a coinflip.

AA, KK, QQ and AKs, AKo = pre flop RE-raise of 2.5%

Hand 0: 57.191% 54.62% 02.57% 117843360 5545566.00 { KK }
Hand 1: 42.809% 40.24% 02.57% 86815812 5545566.00 { QQ+, AKs, AKo }

obviously we are great against this guys range. no secret there.

srry srry i didn't realise you meant the 3bet stat i thought you were talking about players with a 1% pfr. i see you pointed that out to me and i failed to notice whoooopsies.

seriously guys, never fold KK preflop for 100bb ever. Do not waste time or effort coming with explanations or scenarios that tell you otherwise. IT WILL SHOW A PROFIT.

first re-raiser has a pre flop re-raise of .4%.

so i'm putting him squarely on AA,KK.

do you like calling the first re-raiser with QQ for set value? obvious yes right?

the 2nd re-raiser has pre flop re-raise of .4% too. he makes it to expensive so i fold.

i think this is a good example of using the pre flop re-raise stat at 25NL

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Button ($28.50)
Hero ($24.75)
BB ($40.10)
UTG ($25.35)
MP ($29.30)
CO ($16.05)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, Q.
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, Button raises to $2, Hero calls $1.90, BB raises to $8, CO folds, Button calls $6, Hero folds.

Flop: ($18.75) x, x, x (2 players)
BB bets $8, Button raises to $20.5 (All-In), BB calls $12.50.

Turn: ($59.75) x (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($59.75) x (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $59.75

Results in white below:
BB has Ks Ad (high card, ace).
Button has Ac Ah (one pair, aces).
Outcome: Button wins $59.75.

Your hand just proves that you should never let go of KK. Using your logic do you fold KK if you are button? I hope not, because it is wrong 99% of the time.

I have thought about this.

NEVER PUT YOURSELF IN A SPOT WHERE YOU SHOULD BE FOLDING KK PREFLOP.

ie. don't 4bet if they are only stacking off w/ KK+, maybe even don't 3bet if they're really nitty. I allllmost never fold KK preflop (this is 100nl fr so there are def times when stacking off is bad) because I never put myself in those situations.

Originally Posted by Marshall28

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Never fold Kings. You will run into AA 1 in 44 times. 1 in 5 of those times you will win. Its very negative EV to fold KK.

Try this out.. fold KK preflop for a year and check your win rate.. go all the way with KK the next year. Check your bottom line.

Tj

could you please elaborate a little bit on the math here, im very curious.

10 handed KK runs into AA about 1 in 20 times. As you have fewer players at the table adjust.

However, that is a little deceptive because the union of the odds you will get sick action with KK and be up against AA is higher.

I've folded kings once or twice and it was both in like 4-bet pots 3/4 ways preflop with nitty ass bitchez.

I can count the number of times I've ran into a fullstack pushing worse than kings on one hand tho. over somewhere in the range of 150k hands of 25NL-200NL FR cash. Twice actually. fractionstacks plenty. I assume I just have terrible luck and keep a'pushin' em'...

i will generally give a little less credit to pre-flop re-raises when they look like squeezes from the blinds. depends on the player of course.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

depends on the player

This pretty much cinches it. Some guys I'm happy to get it all-in against with Jacks.

of course you can correctly fold kk for 100bb. that situation however, is exceedingly rare.

let's put it this way, if you are experienced at weighting hand ranges and have any sort of mathematical ability, the answer to this is pretty easy.

if you don't..... i agree never let it go.

Originally Posted by Lukie

of course you can correctly fold kk for 100bb. that situation however, is exceedingly rare.

let's put it this way, if you are experienced at weighting hand ranges and have any sort of mathematical ability, the answer to this is pretty easy.

if you don't..... i agree never let it go.

Basically...if you have to ask "should I fold KK pre", the answer is no.

But as you get more confident in reads you might actually pick spots where it's correct to do so, instead of just being a nit who routinely folds monsters to any sort of aggression.

Basically...if you have to ask "should I fold KK pre", the answer is no.

I agree with this.

But as you get more confident in reads you might actually pick spots where it's correct to do so, instead of just being a nit who routinely folds monsters to any sort of aggression.

I'm not the kind of player that actively tries finding spots to make huge laydowns. In my career ( > 1 million hands) I can likely count on one hand the amount of times I've intentionally folded KK pre.

I agree with the second part too, although I'd prefer to avoid talking about 'reads' and instead talk about weighting hand ranges. Like people make the argument that "they could always have AK, KK, QQ so that's why you can never fold KK preflop". Well if those were weighted equally, that's correct. If it's weighted something like 90% AA, 5% QQ, 5% AK... we have ~24% equity vs that range. It's very rare, but *NOT DIFFICULT* to come up with a situation where this would apply.

Yes I understand I omitted KK from the above range but that's only because I'm lazy. If we have KK, there will be one possible card combo remaining for the other KK (as opposed to 6 for any other pair). And if the context of this dicussion is even going to be relevant, we'll have to figure that each combo of AA will be more likely than each combo of KK, followed by QQ and AK or AK and QQ.

Basically, this is one of those things where there's far too much debate and thought put into it for far too little return.

When you start putting more thought into thin value bets and good spots to bluff, and less thought into huge laydowns, you'll become a better player.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

WARNING: FOLDING KK PRE-FLOP ARGUMENT

you raise from early position.

you get 3.5x re-raised. so at 25NL you raise to $1... get re-popped to $3.5,... then you 4 bet to $10 and villain shoves.

you look up his pre-flop re-raise % and its .09 and his all-in(w$sd) is 95%. say this is over 800-2500 hands.

he has AA. .09% is exactly AA and KK.

I think others already touched on this, but 4-betting seems beyond bad without exactly AA.

The % you are looking for is .9% as opposed to .09%.

P.S. this guy is running very good. If we make the assumption that he only felts KK and AA, he's gotten all-in pre 20 times with KK+ and won 19 of them. Not bad. Both that he's getting KK+ more often then he should, gets an absurd amount of action (like gets it allin pre everytime he has KK+) and wins 95% of the time. It's like my time-tested, battle-proven advice of "just hit more sets, problem solved" applied to preflop. Brilliant.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

When you start putting more thought into thin value bets and good spots to bluff, and less thought into huge laydowns, you'll become a better player.

I agree with you, but with one caveat.

If you have the skill to find good spots to bluff and value bet (i.e. *NOT* the obvious spots), then preflop decisions involving only direct odds and coming up with very fuzzy hand ranges becomes pretty simple and easy.

laying down kings is NEVER easy.

The % you are looking for is .9% as opposed to .09%.

yeah thats what i meant. .9% is exactly AA and KK. lets say he's 1.2-1.5%. you figure the guy is going to squeeze or re-raise AK from the blinds sometimes. or maybe QQ once in a while. but now he's wanting to get it all in on a 4 bet shove.

When you start putting more thought into thin value bets and good spots to bluff, and less thought into huge laydowns, you'll become a better player.

agreed. but it is an interesting situation up against someone who only pre flop re-raises .4% - 1.2%... and 4 bet shoves you.

Who cares. This is a waste of everyones time unless your goal in life is to stroke your ego.

this actually isnt interesting. you are facing a preflop all in for 100bb and u have KK. you probably play dozens of pots per session that would be more interesting to discuss than this hand.

LOL.