ITM KK hand ($27)

[taipan168]

Opp was very aggressive both pre and postflop, stats 32/23. How do you play this? Shoving back preflop seems a little excessive.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $25+$2 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (3 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t3230)
SB (t6405)
Hero (BB) (t3865)

Hero's M: 10.31

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, K
1 fold, SB raises to t600, Hero raises to t1600, SB calls t1000

Flop: (t3275) 10, A, 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (t3275) 3 (2 players)
SB bets t800, Hero calls t800

River: (t4875) 9 (2 players)
SB bets t800, Hero calls t800

[Nakamura]

I think if opp is really aggro I will tend to push here. I probably expect to be called by a lot of Ax hands and pockets (which we obviously crush). Given that 25% of the time an A flops and we have to check it down, I tend to think simply pushing here probably offers the best value.

[rong]

I'd agree with that, Push preflop after SB bets. As he is very aggressive, he may call with a weeker hand, maybe not even an ace, and that late in the torney I am generally pushing a lot anyway so I am probably not being put on a monster.

If he folds, you gained his raised chips, if he calls, you are probably the favourite by a country mile.

That said, I can understand wanting to ensure you get some action with your cowboys so I don't think calling his preflop bet is wrong, and once the Ace is on the table, I guess just calling as you did is a perfectly reasonable response.

[gingerwizard]

Pushing preflop here sucks imo. Shoving 19 big blinds down an aggressive players throat with the 2nd best starting hand in holdem is what I call over betting. Try to think why you want to push? So that he folds a whole lot of hands you want calls from? Why would you want that? You want to double through here not scare him off.

Let's face it, you're not deep enough to let this go post flop. His range is wide and although it includes a lot of Aces, it also includes a lot of trash. So you know that although you're not happy to see an A if it comes, the plan is to get to showdown come what may.

So when he raises pre, my hand plan is this: Raise, hope he calls, if an A hits don't bet, just get to showdown, if that means calling my stack off so be it. If it doesn't hit I still check behind on the flop, and raise AI the turn. My plan sees that I get all his chips in the middle hoping that my KK held up.

Put another way:

Option 1: Push preflop. He folds x% of hands you beat and you win 600, rest of the time you're at the mercy of the board.

OR

Option 2: Raise preflop, but plan to get AI at some point after the flop: He folds y% of hands you beat where y<=x. You're still at the mercy of the board when he calls because you're committed to the pot, but at least you've taken more hands you're beating this far. I.e. preflop you've made a better expectation play by raising.

It seems to me that the only reason you have for pushing pre is to stop him paying too much to see a flop with Ax and sucking out on you. I.e. you'd rather force him to play correctly than to make a mistake that he might get lucky from.

[hangchiong]

push preflop is really really bad,we are losing our value here.
bet flop,and look for a cheap showdown.

[jrnumbers1]

Yea, i agree with the "non pushing" preflop. Even though this flop was semi scary, a large majority of the time with a player as aggressive as he was the flop wont have an A, and the chips will all go in the middle regardless.

[tpb221]

With a aggro opp with the chip lead I'm pushing this preflop.

[CosmonautX]

pf his raise made it 400 to you .. at that point the pot is 875 .. he is known to be aggressive .. why does an aggressive person who has a stack that should he lose he still has enough chips to have almost 10M while ITM..?

i usually do this to make the BB fold presuming he has trash (as most hands are) ..

also by shoving pf you don't have to sit there wetting your pants when that big scary ace comes on the flop .. if he calls your shove you will most likely win and double up .. if he folds you scoop a nice pot that adds a couple M to your stack .. if he does beat you (with Ax, a flopped set, two pair, or being able to make it the river to complete a straight or flush) well that's poker. take your third place loot and fire up another s-n-g

[gingerwizard]

also by shoving pf you don't have to sit there wetting your pants when that big scary ace comes on the flop ..

I.e. the reason for shoving is to fold his bad hands away, and because you are afraid of playing post flop if an A comes.

Playing like that is -$EV, and since I know Taipan has no reason to play scared, I can't see how this advice is right

[dsaxton]

This looks fine. Pushing preflop is bad, and betting the flop is almost surely wrong against a super aggressive opponent. (There's no value in the bet, and you can induce bluffs by checking behind.)

[baudib]

Taipan, you know how to play this as well as anyone and I've learned a lot from you. I was in a spot like this recently where I had position on an UTG raiser with KK and we checked A-high flop and I called down his turn and river bets...he had 99.

NH

[TLR]

I think vs an aggressive player I am pushing the turn, his check on the flop and feeler bet on the turn on a draw heavy boards are good indications that he does not have an A IMO, however he may have a drawing hand and you dont want to give him a free card. pushing the turn after checking the flop may also get him to lay down a weak Ace

[Rycky4Golf]

I'm not sure what to think of this hand. I see the reasons for making the reraise, but I just think it leaves us with an awkward stack size postflop if we are called (only 2/3 of the pot size). If the intention was to get it all-in postflop but inducing a bluff then I think we have to do that on the turn. He's most likely not folding an ace or the heart draw at that point, but we got it in like we wanted.

Still, if we are looking to get an overly aggressive opponent to play at us, can we not trap with our KK and simply call preflop? I know that's usually done HU, but in essence thats what we have here. I would think this give us a little more time to manuever post flop. Naturally we have to be leary of the ace hitting the flop, but we could simply call a c-bet and see if he checks to us on the turn.

Just thought I'd throw a different idea out there to see what others might say about it.

[DoanDiggy]

Still, if we are looking to get an overly aggressive opponent to play at us, can we not trap with our KK and simply call preflop? I know that's usually done HU, but in essence thats what we have here. I would think this give us a little more time to manuever post flop.

I like this. I think the only downside is maybe that we're not charging his Ax hands enough to see the flop, and also there's almost no chance of folding out a weak ace by shoving over one of his bets on an A-high flop. That might be offset by the value of him having a hand like A9 on a 9-high flop, though, so I think this is very close.

Another possible issue is history... Have we ever flat called an SB raise from the BB before? If not, doing it here would look highly suspect. Have we tried to resteal with light holdings? If so, raising is definitely the best move since we might get him to shove over preflop.

[Sprayed]

This looks fine. Pushing preflop is bad, and betting the flop is almost surely wrong against a super aggressive opponent. (There's no value in the bet, and you can induce bluffs by checking behind.)

this