Scary KK hands

[SmackinYaUp]

Texas Hold'em $1-$1 NL (real money), #1,108,919,928
Table Concord, 26 Jul 2005 5:10 PM ET
Seat 1: SlappinYaUp ($101.50 in chips)
Seat 3: poidog1 ($76.50 in chips)
Seat 7: Skotgun ($138 in chips)
Seat 9: spencerdylan ($49.50 in chips)
Seat 10: Quyzzie ($50.75 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
Quyzzie posts blind ($0.50), SlappinYaUp posts blind ($1)

SlappinYaUp gets [KSKD]

PRE-FLOP
poidog1 bets $3, Skotgun calls $3, spencerdylan calls $3, Quyzzie calls $2.50, SlappinYaUp bets $20, poidog1 calls $18, Skotgun folds, spencerdylan folds, Quyzzie folds.

FLOP [board cards 4C,6H,AH ]
SlappinYaUp...




Texas Hold'em $1-$1 NL (real money), #1,108,930,204
Table Fort Bragg, 26 Jul 2005 5:14 PM ET
Seat 1: tony R ($149.50 in chips)
Seat 7: SlappinYaUp ($142.50 in chips)
Seat 8: lennysmalls ($94.75 in chips)
Seat 9: theboybarnes ($21.50 in chips)
Seat 10: Monajlovah ($203.50 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
lennysmalls posts blind ($0.50), theboybarnes posts blind ($1).

SlappinYaUp gets [KHKD]

PRE-FLOP
Monajlovah bets $4, tony R calls $4, SlappinYaUp bets $12, lennysmalls folds, theboybarnes folds, Monajlovah calls $8, tony R calls $8.

FLOP [board cards AS,7D,7H ]
Monajlovah checks, tony R checks, SlappinYaUp...

[dalecooper]

On both of these hands I'd bet half the pot on the flop, and if I am called or raised, that's it... check/fold.

Yeah, I'm doing the same as Dale here. Firing out $25 on the first hand and around $20 on the second hand as feeler bets to find out if your opponents do have an ace or not.

[alias2211]

In the first one, it looks like you're first to act and headsup. I actually like to bet these flops hard, hard enough to rep AJ-AK. This will put Ax on the defensive: they either fold right there, reraise to see if you really have top kicker or will go into calldown mode, spreading out the cost of the bet over 3 rounds and not just one. These three actions should help you figure out what they have and if you're beat on flop. If you DO bet that hard, though, without any improvement on turn (i.e. king number 3 falls) I say go into check/fold mode.

On the second one, you have a lot more options because you're last to act. But you also have two OPPs to deal with instead of just one. I still favor betting hard, but mainly because of positional advantage. At $35 pot on flop, I'd probably bet at least $20 without any reads from last position. A cold call is either Ax waiting to see how you'll bet the turn, or a 7 waiting for you to bet ANYTHING. With this one, if you do get called at all, you bet again on the turn there to find out, but don't bet weak, you gotta go at least 80 % of what you did on the flop or they'll sniff you out (at least the good $100NL players will).

[dalecooper]

In the first one, it looks like you're first to act and headsup. I actually like to bet these flops hard, hard enough to rep AJ-AK. This will put Ax on the defensive: they either fold right there, reraise to see if you really have top kicker or will go into calldown mode, spreading out the cost of the bet over 3 rounds and not just one.

Keep two things in mind here:

1. Opponent led out for a raise UTG and then called a ginormous re-raise from Smackin. He isn't that likely to have Ax. If he has an ace, it's paired up with a king, a queen, or another ace - maybe a suited jack if he's a real monkey. If he doesn't have an ace, he has a pocket pair lower than kings, and unless he made a set, he's probably folding to any respectable bet Smackin throws out. So ideally, you want the lowest bet that the opponent will still respect as representing the ace.

2. Opponent called a ginormous re-raise from Smackin. I mention that again because it's one tiny window of information: the guy doesn't let go of hands easily. Basically, unless he has AA or KK, he probably shouldn't have called that re-raise, because the implied odds are now bad (the raise constituted over 1/4 of his stack) and he's probably behind if he has jacks or queens or whatever. So betting hard on the flop may not be the right approach, because this guy is so likely to call. Again I think you want to get your information cheaper than that. If he's a moron with AQ or AJ or something, he's probably not getting out of this hand now that he hit his ace. But if he has queens or jacks, he may hate that ace and finally wake up and realize he's losing.

[DimitriT]

1. you need to bet 1/2 the pot there. I think your overbet PF was too much. You could have just raised it to $9 and achieved what you wanted. Now you need to bet at least $15 to see where you stand. A big overbet like that from the BB looks alot like a steal to some super-aggressive players.

2. same thing but at least this time you have position and you didn't got nutty on the PFR.

[SmackinYaUp]

1. you need to bet 1/2 the pot there. I think your overbet PF was too much. You could have just raised it to $9 and achieved what you wanted. Now you need to bet at least $15 to see where you stand. A big overbet like that from the BB looks alot like a steal to some super-aggressive players.

2. same thing but at least this time you have position and you didn't got nutty on the PFR.

So you're saying in hand 1 I should have gotten about half as much money in the pot from an obviously inferior hand? I welcome for people to think a huge raise with KK is a steal.

Anyways, I edited these hand histories - no aces fell but right after they called the big raised and just before the flop was dealt, I was wondering what I would do if one fell. Thankfully I took both pots down uncontested. On the first one I bet 50 and the second one I bet 20. Look good?

[DimitriT]

So you're saying in hand 1 I should have gotten about half as much money in the pot from an obviously inferior hand? I welcome for people to think a huge raise with KK is a steal.

If you had a read that he would call 20xBB with a poor hand my hat is off to you. I think most of the time you will only get called there by AA, so why drop an additional $10 when that happens. You either want him to fold his AK or AQ there or to reraise his AA. Overbetting puts your money at risk and limits your information. I guess if your image is super-aggressive you MAY get a call there from a weak player (which is what I think happened in this hand) with a weaker hand. I can see that as a reasonable strategy.

[SmackinYaUp]

I dont think it was so much that I was super aggressive as the fact that he was weak and loose. My read wasn't dead on, but he was hard to read because all he did was call so I didn't want to think - if he wants to call then fine was my mentality but we're going in on the flop barring an ace.