KK, shortstack push in front ($27)

Not a solid read, but MP2 was quite loose, stats something like 50/0 at this point. Does anybody bet at any time postflop?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

BB (t1570)
UTG (t1470)
UTG+1 (t1460)
MP1 (t1675)
MP2 (t2685)
MP3 (t510)
CO (t1470)
Button (t1190)
Hero (t1470)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K.
3 folds, MP2 calls t30, MP3 raises to t510, 2 folds, Hero calls t495, 1 fold, MP2 calls t480.

Flop: (t1560) 2, 8, A (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks.

Turn: (t1560) 5 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks.

River: (t1560) 4 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks.

Maybe this is just a style thing but I never check the river in position when I know I have the best hand. Throw out a small bet and give this guy a chance to make a really stupid call.

Why are you calling for a third of your stack? Push over pre-flop

Originally Posted by Deanglow

Why are you calling for a third of your stack? Push over pre-flop

With anything but AA or KK, I would - but I was hoping that one of the donks behind would come along for the ride or shove over. I got what I wanted preflop!

I would push preflop
Otherwise its ok

Deffo push pre flop
other than that I dont bet on any street here

Originally Posted by Geanosssss

Deffo push pre flop
other than that I dont bet on any street here

Why push pre?

Originally Posted by badgers

Originally Posted by Geanosssss

Deffo push pre flop
other than that I dont bet on any street here

Why push pre?

Either isolate or build a nice side pot

Originally Posted by TLR

Originally Posted by badgers

Originally Posted by Geanosssss

Deffo push pre flop
other than that I dont bet on any street here

Why push pre?

Either isolate or build a nice side pot

Why do we want to isolate? KK is surely strong enough that we want more callers.

umm... you almost never want to play against more callers with AA, KK. unless your really deep stacked in a MTT with good players or maybe a cash game. at SnG's there are to many donks calling with A5 or QT. you don't 3 or 4 callers... that's a bad beat waiting to happen.

that's common knowledge isn't it?

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

umm... you almost never want to play against more callers with AA, KK. unless your really deep stacked in a MTT with good players or maybe a cash game. at SnG's there are to many donks calling with A5 or QT. you don't 3 or 4 callers... that's a bad beat waiting to happen.

that's common knowledge isn't it?

Wrong.

I would happily, I repeat, HAPPILY, get it all in vs. everyone if I had AA on the first hand. While I have a monster and I have the advantage, I'm delighted to get more callers. The reason you try and get heads-up with AA/KK when deep stacked is so that you aren't playing against the best of two hands. ie. we will only get value from a hand that hits the flop.

When a player is all in, this is irrelevant. He cannot deny us any more value since he can't fold. It is then our objective to get as much value out of kings as possible and in this hand we can do that by flat calling and encouraging more calls/ a push over. If 2-3 more players are likely to call then that is bad, since we can the lose post-flop value again, but if it is a tight table and 1 may call, yippeeeee!

The question is whether calling or shoving pre is more likely to get value, and I agree with tai's play.

Actually that's not the original question, I check it down too though betting the river seems OK. I just can't be sure enough of where I'm at against a 50/0 to bet the river though, against a player with more reasonable stats I would.

I can't count how many times I've had AA against 4 opps all-in and lost, so NO - you don't want more callers. But in this particular case, with only 2 players left to act, I min-raise AA and push KK here - cuz I don't mind one more opp with AA but hate another caller w KK if an A comes on the flop (as it did).

Given the action, I check it down since the board looks pretty ugly.

Originally Posted by badgers

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

umm... you almost never want to play against more callers with AA, KK. unless your really deep stacked in a MTT with good players or maybe a cash game. at SnG's there are to many donks calling with A5 or QT. you don't 3 or 4 callers... that's a bad beat waiting to happen.

that's common knowledge isn't it?

Wrong.

I would happily, I repeat, HAPPILY, get it all in vs. everyone if I had AA on the first hand. While I have a monster and I have the advantage, I'm delighted to get more callers. The reason you try and get heads-up with AA/KK when deep stacked is so that you aren't playing against the best of two hands. ie. we will only get value from a hand that hits the flop.

When a player is all in, this is irrelevant. He cannot deny us any more value since he can't fold. It is then our objective to get as much value out of kings as possible and in this hand we can do that by flat calling and encouraging more calls/ a push over. If 2-3 more players are likely to call then that is bad, since we can the lose post-flop value again, but if it is a tight table and 1 may call, yippeeeee!

The question is whether calling or shoving pre is more likely to get value, and I agree with tai's play.

Actually that's not the original question, I check it down too though betting the river seems OK. I just can't be sure enough of where I'm at against a 50/0 to bet the river though, against a player with more reasonable stats I would.

AA is a hand that loses value as the hand progresses, I raise it to limit the field, if there are 4 callers I am not thrilled, I prefer to play AA/KK heads up or 3 way

Originally Posted by badgers

Originally Posted by Geanosssss

Deffo push pre flop
other than that I dont bet on any street here

Why push pre?

Why not?

Originally Posted by badgers

I just can't be sure enough of where I'm at against a 50/0 to bet the river though, against a player with more reasonable stats I would.

It's a leak to not bet unless you know exactly where you're at. If your bet will be called a lot more often by worse hands than by better hands then you should bet. I'd bet something really stupid like 300 on the river because this guy will probably call with any pair and it'll be nice to have his 300 chips later on. If taipan has a different post-flop read on the player that could change things. Good posts in this thread though badgers.

As for the rest of this thread re: pushing vs. calling pre-flop.

1. Put shortstack on a range. Who the hell knows what he has but 66-QQ, AT+, KQ is an OK start I think, because he never has AA here.
2. Put donkey on a range of hands he calls 510 with but folds to a shove. I bet he's not folding any pair or any two face cards for 510 but he'd fold most hands to an all-in except for maybe 99+ AQ+ or so.
3. Figure out your equity if you go all-in pre-flop.
4. Figure out your equity if you just call pre-flop, based on
(i) odds of KK holding up 3-way.
(ii) odds of getting all-in with donkey on the flop and odds of winning side-pot if this happens (I'd guess he calls all-in on 40-50% of flops and you beat him ~70% of the time if he does call but I'm not sure how accurate those numbers are).
5. Use ICM to figure out the best play.

If you don't want to do any math, you could just fall back on statements like "AA doesn't want more callers" that fish like to say in casinos. But then don't surprised if you're stuck at $5 SNG's.