Live tournament - Fold KK? No unusual conditions

bmc

Right, I'm still a bit on tilt about this so I'm looking for opinions on this to speed up my "recovery".

In a live tournament you are dealt KK.

Of course, you raise.

A good player reraises you. You reraise him and he pushes back over the top.

There are no stack size issues. You both have plenty of chips but you cover the villian easily and if you fold your KK at this point you are still well above average stack size.

Here's my problem. When the villian pushed, I (to use an already overused phrase) "just knew he had Aces". It took me a while to call but in the end I did.

Why did I call? Well, apart from getting roughly 3 to 1 on the pot how could I "KNOW" he has aces. I could well be wrong.

I'm not shy about playing big pots. Its not fear. This time it just felt wrong to call.

Finally, my question...

In your opinion, could it ever be right to fold your KK in that situation? Based on your "read"?

How much faith do you put in your "reads" in live play?

RoundTower

I don't see how there are no stack size issues. If you both have an unlimited amount of chips in front of you, call and see if you can hit a set and outplay him after the flop. Otherwise of course it is right to fold, since you have the worst hand.

bmc

Sorry, I need to be a bit clearer.

Stack size issues. The villian had a very healthy stack to begin with. My stack was through some nice catches, was quite huge.

I could take on this guys entire stack and still be above average in the tournament.

We do not have unlimited chips. The villian pushed all in after my reraise. There will be no postflop play.

I feel I have the worst hand but the question is "can you be so sure of that that you could fold KK?".

califano

Was this yesterday at the e30 freezeout, i seen you talking to Oscar at the top of stairs. maybe this was the story you were telling him?.
Under no similar circumstance ever would i fold even if 'i knew' he had AA. To many people will go over the top with AK, AQ or any lesser pair so i wouldnt have even felt bad about it when he showed AA to be honest even if my concience was telling me he had it. Stack sizes would mean little to me in fact i would be hoping if anything he would have more chips than me going into the pot, this would make my call even easier.

The only time i would ever consider folding KK would be player1 'Raise' ... player2 're-raise all in'...player3 'all-in'... then action on me.

ollyk1

ok bmc,

lets say the blinds are 150/300 and you raised to 900 and he reraised to 2700 and you rereaised to 6000 before he went all-in for a total of 11000. Just to put figures on it. Therefore its costing you 5000 to win a possible 22,450 (assuming no limpers got caught in the reraising cross fire).

So you are approximately getting 3.5/1 on your money or the correct odds to call with a 28% chance. Now if he has Aces you still have a 20% chance of winning and if he doesn't he either has KK or AK or QQ Lets say you are a 70% favourite on average in these circumstances. So your read needs to be sufficiently certain to overcome the 8% difference in the odds you are getting to justify the fold.

0.2*X +0.75*(1-X) = 0.28 is the equation for the correct level of certainty which you need to have to justify a fold based on my assumptions above, where X = your confidence in your "read"

So the answer according to me in the situation I've outlined is 85.5%, or as Careca will no doubt be along to say "your opponent needs to be wearing either a mirror jumper or playing his cards face up". Having said all that given the opponent and the reason you reraised rather than flat call his raise was to find out where you were, you could have and maybe should have folded*


* Only messing with your head here

bmc

ollyk1 wrote:

ok bmc,

lets say the blinds are 150/300 and you raised to 900 and he reraised to 2700 and you rereaised to ...

...

...0.2*X +0.75*(1-X) = 0.28 is the equation for the correct level of certainty which you need to have to justify a fold based on my assumptions above, where X = your confidence in your "read"

So the answer according to me in the situation I've outlined is 85.5%...

Nice answer. This was precisely my logic in calling at the time. By precisely, I mean, all of those thoughts went through my head in some random order but without figures attached to them.

Now that figures are attached to them, I'll take 85% certainty as a guide line.

In "the heat of battle" at the time last night, I may have said I was ninety-something-big percent sure that he had Aces.

So I guess the question is, am I kidding myself with the "benefit" of hindsight that I could be that sure? Does anybody else out there think that they could be more than 85% sure that they were up against AA in a live situation? (Without mirrored jumpers or exposed cards! )

On looking back at it though, the difference in the percentages is getting tight enough that it's only a technical question at this stage and clearly not an absolute disaster to call.



Rounders123, yeah if Oscar had a glazed expression while I was talking to him, it was probably that hand that I was talking about. It was this hand, along with two other pocket KK and a pocket JJ that tilted me. I don't feel like sharing information on just how bady I played one of the other KK hands though, just yet. How did you get on in the end anyway?

RoundTower

bmc wrote:

Sorry, I need to be a bit clearer.

Stack size issues. The villian had a very healthy stack to begin with. My stack was through some nice catches, was quite huge.

I could take on this guys entire stack and still be above average in the tournament.

We do not have unlimited chips. The villian pushed all in after my reraise. There will be no postflop play.

I feel I have the worst hand but the question is "can you be so sure of that that you could fold KK?".

Yes, I could be that sure, but normally I wouldn't be that sure at all, and would call with KK. Ollyk's post explains that if you are getting a good price from the pot you have to be very sure he has aces, as it would be a bad mistake to fold if he has queens.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to your stack size relative to the rest of the tournament; you shouldn't make your decisions based on this unless you have a very close decision to make. If you decide someone has AA 90% of the time in the situation you are in, you don't have a close decision.

bmc

RoundTower wrote:

I wouldn't pay too much attention to your stack size relative to the rest of the tournament; you shouldn't make your decisions based on this unless you have a very close decision to make.

This is what I meant by stack sizes being irrelevant in this case. It was not a make or break decision.

NickyOD

Agaisnt a good player I think its a best to smooth call the reraise. Since he will only stay in with Aces after another raise when the stacks are this deep.

califano

Caught stealing. The most blatent blind steal in the history of poker!.

About 30 minutes after you our table was decending into an all in fest with the blinds getting harsh and there were no flops seen for ages when suddenly everyone passed to me on the button. It would have been rude not to so i went all in with K7 and BB called with KJ!

willis

Daniel Negreanue had a piece in his blog about this years WPT Borgata open where he folded KK in the 1st level. He said hed never folded KK preflop before this. The same type of situation as above, deep stcked and re re raising going on, he folded to an unknowns all-in because he was certain he had aces...your man flipped QQ and Daniel vowed never to fold KK preflop again

bmc

NickyOD wrote:

Agaisnt a good player I think its a best to smooth call the reraise. Since he will only stay in with Aces after another raise when the stacks are this deep.

Hmmm... This would suggest that I'm not a good player, since I stayed in with KK...

Joking aside, I didn't really consider this. The reason I didn't really consider this at the time was because I didn't see this guy committing this much of his stack with AK, AQ, etc... As I said I was "pretty sure" I was up against AA and if you were to ask me for a 99.99 percent confidence interval I would have said, JJ, QQ, KK, AA and on a very long outside shot, perhaps AK.

Given that I think I'm up against a big pair what kind of board am I (realistically) hoping to hit that will help my decision?

(I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestion Nicky, I'm looking for more info on your thoughts here. I honestly hadn't considered that up to now.)

ollyk1

Agaisnt a good player I think its a best to smooth call the reraise. Since he will only stay in with Aces after another raise when the stacks are this deep.

Very good point Nicky and thats the nub of the problem. Bmc reraised here to get information I feel, and then got his answer. A smooth call and carefully watching the opponent may have allowed him to get the same info for free and not feel priced in preflop to call the all-in. Plus he could always hit the flop. Only against good players is this a good idea.

I remember I played a similar hand against Dathio (about 12 months ago so I won't be hurt if he doesn't remember it:D ) when he standard raised 3*BB in utg+1 and I played JJ in MP2 (I decided to play them like they were Aces to see what he'd do) with a reraise (because he'd been playing a few pots and I wanted to fire a shot across his bows) he smooth called slightly worried and I knew I was in trouble facing QQ or KK. Flop cam AKQ and Dathio the cheeky monkey checked and was disgusted when I checked behind.

My prayers were for no Jack (so that my conviction on my set read wouldn't be tested, no way did he have a straight or even a draw to a straight minimum two pair) Turn came a Ten putting three of a flush out there and giving me a straight but Dathio a massive draw if he had KK (one being a king of hearts which is what he had). He went all-in and I reluctantly called. Devore couldn't understand my pain at seeing Dathio's huge draw and started explaining how my straight was ahead. lol. River was a Q.

ollyk1

Given that I think I'm up against a big pair what kind of board am I (realistically) hoping to hit that will help my decision?

KKA obviously!!!:p

If the flop comes raggy and you check and he goes all in for 9300 into a 5650 pot maybe you can get away?? Maybe not either but you won't feel nearly as priced in....

It's still a tough situation and if Mike Matusow can't get away from them in the WSOP final table I wouldn't beat myself up about it.

kinaldo

i think i'm the villain in this piece... hard luck brian, almost a great hellmuthian style laydown, but u should know i only play the nuts. i put your chips to good use though.. finished 2nd for €450.

RoundTower

bmc wrote:

Given that I think I'm up against a big pair what kind of board am I (realistically) hoping to hit that will help my decision?

I think if you call here when there is only one or 1.5 pot sized bets left, you are going to get it all in on the flop (maybe not if there is an A on the board). So you still lose your whole stack against aces, but you may win his stack if he has QQ and flops an overpair. If you re-reraise massively before the flop you lose the maximum against aces don't win as much against queens. It depends exactly how much he has left.

bmc

ollyk1 wrote:

If the flop comes raggy...

I would have thought that if the flop came raggy that I would still have exactly the same decision on my hands...



Kinaldo: I suspect you WERE the villain in this piece, you're one of the faces that I hadn't yet put to a boards username. (Don't tell anyone else , but I'm probably more on tilt for not allowing myself to get away from my JJ a few hands later against your QQ. That was tilit induced by the KK Vs AA)

Ardent

rounders123 wrote:

The only time i would ever consider folding KK would be player1 'Raise' ... player2 're-raise all in'...player3 'all-in'... then action on me.

Even in that situation I doubt you could really fold - very likely that at least two of the three players could be raising and re-raising with Ax and your KK could dominate all the way.

kinaldo

bmc wrote:

Kinaldo: I suspect you WERE the villain in this piece, you're one of the faces that I hadn't yet put to a boards username. (Don't tell anyone else , but I'm probably more on tilt for not allowing myself to get away from my JJ a few hands later against your QQ. That was tilit induced by the KK Vs AA)

ah i wouldn't beat yourself up too much about it, having a big pair run into an overpair twice in such a short space of time is just pure bad luck. it's possible to get away sometimes, but most players will lose all their chips.

RoundTower

kinaldo wrote:

i think i'm the villain in this piece

easy fold so.

bmc

kinaldo wrote:

ah i wouldn't beat yourself up too much about it, having a big pair run into an overpair twice in such a short space of time is just pure bad luck. it's possible to get away sometimes, but most players will lose all their chips.

Congrats on 2nd by the way. Glad to see my chips made it to the final table!!

Rounder123: Unlucky! It has to be done!

ollyk1

I would have thought that if the flop came raggy that I would still have exactly the same decision on my hands...

Not really since you've now missed the flop. So your odds of catching your card have dropped. You aren't in for nearly as much because you flat called instead of reraising and calling an all-in so you can give it up and look for a better situation and bully with your stack (I agree that this is still a very tricky spot but not so tricky as it was preflop at a guess you could now drop KK provided you were 70% confident he had AA.)

Plus by watching kinaldo you can see that the board was an irrelevance to him and maybe that will firm up your read and you can fold.

Listen I'm not saying its an easy laydown and that you even should in the circumstances but I do like the flat call here as suggested by Nicky against "good" players. I've only considered folding KK once in my life preflop, as you know, and the guy had the decency to give the game away under a strare down that he had AK or QQ and I merrily called only to get hammered by his AK on the flop so sometimes you just have to admit you get cold decked and sometimes you get hit with a beat the tilting afterwards is the bigger problem tbh.

NickyOD

bmc wrote:

Hmmm... This would suggest that I'm not a good player, since I stayed in with KK...

Joking aside, I didn't really consider this. The reason I didn't really consider this at the time was because I didn't see this guy committing this much of his stack with AK, AQ, etc... As I said I was "pretty sure" I was up against AA and if you were to ask me for a 99.99 percent confidence interval I would have said, JJ, QQ, KK, AA and on a very long outside shot, perhaps AK.

Given that I think I'm up against a big pair what kind of board am I (realistically) hoping to hit that will help my decision?

(I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestion Nicky, I'm looking for more info on your thoughts here. I honestly hadn't considered that up to now.)

I can't remember ever folding KK against Aces preflop in a live tournament basically because I rarely get to play deep stack tourneys with a soft blind structure. but I have done it a couple of times online. If you just call the reraise in this spot and you're first to act on a flop without an ace on it and you bet it strongly enough and are reraised you are most likely not ahead with your single pair against a good player who knows you are also a respetably player. If your oponent is first to act then you may still have enough chips to call and evaluate on the turn. I may still get it all in postflop against Aces but Its a judgement call that is easier to make postflop since you don't have to commit as many chips. Putting in the third reraise preflop pot commits you when against a good player you will almost always only be put all-in by aces. Also most bad players tend not make standard reraises with Aces and either flat call, min raise or over raise.

bmc

I'll have to ponder that for a while Ollyk1 and Nicky. Thanks for the input though.



This is probably irrelevant at this stage of the discussion but I did leave some information out. I made a whole handful of silly mistakes last night. The first one was also pocket KK which distracted me when I got KK again.

I was UTG+1 in the hand being discussed. The blinds had gone up two hands previously from 200/400 to 300/600. Very foolishly rather than declaring a raise I announced a bet of 1000 because I had forgotten to adjust to the new blind levels. This was of course adjusted to a call but Kinaldo (and I made sure everyone else at the table) picked up on my original intention which is why I described it as a raise in my first post.

It might explain how I could afford to "re re raise" though, and how Kinaldo could afford to "re re re raise".

I'm off to try and do some work in between my ponderings... Thanks all. WP Kinaldo.

Marq

RoundTower wrote:

easy fold so.

astutely observed.

Doc Farrell

kinaldo wrote:

i think i'm the villain in this piece... hard luck brian, almost a great hellmuthian style laydown, but u should know i only play the nuts. i put your chips to good use though.. finished 2nd for €450.

u wanna tell them the last 6 hands u played to rob ur uncle Dessie? :mad:

bmc

RoundTower wrote:

easy fold so.

Marq wrote:

astutely observed.

I'm glad my boss doesn't play poker and hence doesn't read the poker forums. I said I was going to do some work but instead I've spent the last while still thinking about the hand. I've gone through the figures too and, Ollyk1, I was getting a lot less than 3.5/1 on my call.

Also, I don't know Kinaldo's play quite as well as some others here but I've come to the conclusion that given the situation I was in, Marq and RoundTower are right.

As for how I played it up to that point... I still don't know.

I'm off to beat myself up about it some more now... (and by that I mean think it through and improve my game! :rolleyes: )

kinaldo

Doc Farrell wrote:

u wanna tell them the last 6 hands u played to rob ur uncle Dessie? :mad:

i didn't rob nobody! peter on the other hand...:mad:

kinaldo

bmc

Also, I don't know Kinaldo's play quite as well as some others here but I've come to the conclusion that given the situation I was in, Marq and RoundTower are right.

u should do cos we played each other heads up a few weeks ago and it went something like this

u: raise
me: fold
u: raise
me fold
u: raise
me: fold

etc. etc.

bmc

kinaldo wrote:

bmc

u should do cos we played each other heads up a few weeks ago and it went something like this

u: raise
me: fold
u: raise
me fold
u: raise
me: fold

etc. etc.

Well, I've never considered folding KK preflop before!!

Also, you left out the small final detail of...

me: raise
you: call

FLOP

me: raise
you: push
me: call with trips.

kinaldo

bmc wrote:

Well, I've never considered folding KK preflop before!!

Also, you left out the small final detail of...

me: raise
you: call

FLOP

me: raise
you: push
me: call with trips.

ouch, please don't remind me about that. i think i raised preflop and pushed on the river when i made 2 pair but that hand still haunts me to this day. i just can't seem to win oscar's tournament it's either 2nd or 3rd. although peter did start out with a near 5 to 1 chip lead over me yesterday also i got 2nd bumped from €350 to €450 playing on for another €100 and when i was all in i was ahead so there wasn't much more i could've done this time around.

DeVore

Devore couldn't understand my pain at seeing Dathio's huge draw and started explaining how my straight was ahead. lol.

I don't recall this, I haven't played on a table with DO'C for a while.
Your straight is ahead. Perhaps I thought you seemed confused about it. Monster draw or not, you're about 55% likely to win the hand and 45% to Daithio.

DeV.

roryc

I cant say I've ever laid down Kings preflop, but i did lay them down on a flop of Q 10 x , as i was so sure He'd hit trip queens. Turns out I was right, and earned a load of respect off that hand. Pity it was just the freeroll.....:) Laid down Queens on a 234 flop too. He had aces . Although saying that I've laid down aces and kings before a few times 'knowing' I was behind only for him to flip over muck! Ah well, live and learn

ollyk1

I don't recall this, I haven't played on a table with DO'C for a while.
Your straight is ahead. Perhaps I thought you seemed confused about it. Monster draw or not, you're about 55% likely to win the hand and 45% to Daithio.

DeV.

It was over a year ago Dev (in a Fitz festival game if memory serves....this is very sad that I remember these things its not like I don't play 2-3 times a week or anything...) but I don't expect you to remember a hand you weren't even playing. My pain was from getting myself into a position where I'm taking a slightly biased coin flip for all my chips in a tournament where I was in a comfortable position and in a good spot to final table with a big prize pool prior to this point. In those circumstances it feels bad to end up with a flip. I knew I was ahead the point was he had a king of hearts for another 9 bloody outs!! and then you started to explain how I had a straight and was ahead which I thought was funny at the time. Why else would I call ??:p

Anyway my side story was to illustrate how Dathio had played the kings in a way that he didn't commit himself until he knew I didn't have Aces unlucky/lucky for him I had JJ and we had a big race.

De Deraco

tough fold for me as ive seen kinaldo play 77 the same way:p