Was I an Idiot...The Dangers of Slowplaying KK

JuliusFranco

Hi

Was I a complete idiot for the way I played this hand...

Down to heads up in a STT, I'm chip leader and playing pretty agressive against a pretty good solid/agressive player. Blinds are 100 and 200.

Chips
SB (Me): 4000
BB (Button): 2000

I get KK. Hmmm, i thought. I was taking alot of pots with pre-flop raises. I wanted to try and milk this and I thought a raise here might make him fold. I just flat called, hoping for a reraise. BB checked. OK I thought, I'd raise half his stack after the flop unless it was v scary and see what happens.

Flop comes down 5 6 3 rainbow

I raise 800, he re-raises all in. I figured unless he had 55 66 33 (with which he would have raised pre flop) I was ok. Without thinking any further I called.

However, what i didn't think about was because I gave him a free flop, he could have had anthing that would have me in v bad shape (74, 42, A5, A6, A3, or indeed AA).

He had 56o giving him two pair (he would have folded probably before the flop). Could be worse, at least I was right to call. The turn and river brought two 7s,....

I felt lucky but none the wiser on how to play KK in the above position...(if I had AA I would have been in the same boat)

Wot cha reckon?

DeVore

nothing particularly wrong with how you played them. He was lucky to flop two pair.

I'd put in a minimum raise simply because it increases the money in the pot when you do shut it down after the flop.

DeV.

Shortstack

Good play before the flop, if you have been raising preflop a lot then a lot of players will raise you when you just call. I have used this tactic successfully on many occasions. However it only generally works when they do raise. If they check you have no idea where you are after the flop. Your bet on the flop looked like a bluff being twice the pot size. If he has any peice of it he is going all in knowing you are calling with the worst of it. I would have bet 200 on the flop, this looks like strentgh to many players and you can get away from a reraise still holding the chip lead. Playing big pairs unraised before the flop is one of the most dangerous moves in poker, less so heads up but still to be avoided. You got lucky this time. There is no shame in folding KK or AA after the flop, I wish i could do it more often myself!

Hectorjelly

If your raising a lot preflop then a good player will notice when you just call, its too suspicous. Similarly for a min bet, only do this if youve allready done it a few times.

If you flat call then your always at risk of them hitting two pair, but you will often get called all in with a lower overpair, or top pair. In this case you will often get reraised by 88 or A5, so folding isnt really an option. You took a risk, it didnt work out.

Evil_Bilbo

More or less same thing happened me a while ago. I was on the button, there was a raise and a few calls preflop (I just called - should've gone all in tbh). I had KK. Flop comes J102 - raiser raises it again - everyone folds, I go all in (putting him on AJ). Fecker turns over pocket 2s. No help from the turn or river. Bummer. It is hard to play these cards sometimes.

DeVore

letting more then 2 people see the flop with KK is criminal unless you are determined to play a high-risk/high-reward game (in which case, you should be prepared to be unlucky occasionally). I wouldnt call if I had a raiser before me, I'd either take it down there and then or make him double me through pre-flop. Thats just me though.

DeV.

Lafortezza

A reasonable enough play imho. You wanted to get all the money in the middle as early as possible, on a flop like that it was good enough. If he had A6 for top pair it might have gone in anyway.
Even when you were behind when the cards were turned over you had enough outs not to make it a bad beat when you caught runner-runner.

I agree with DeV too, if you hav AA or KK you never ever want more than 2 callers, 1 caller is enough, so if its multi-way preflop you need to bang in a big raise so that the only callers you get are with 10 10 or AQ type hands.

JuliusFranco

thanks for all the advice people!