Is My Thought Process Correct for KK in This Position?
It all turned out good, but I wanted to get perspective on my thought process.
Playing $1-2NL. Hero stack size is ~$500.
PRE: Hero UTG w/ KK, raise to $12 (pretty standard in this room), MP ($315) calls, BTN ($292) calls, and BB surprisingly raises all in for $38. (Now here's my thought process. This is a new table with all the cast still playing after 2 hours. The BB is loose but not aggressive. I did see him go all-in only once when he was on the BTN and it was folded to him and he went all-in for $125 (to steal $3 in blinds?) and he showed AKo. My thought is that since I hold KK, it's unlikely he holds AK, so he might just have AA, or QQ-JJ. The MP and BTN showed little strength by not 3-betting and I wanted one to come along in case the BB has me beat so I raise only to $80. I didn't want both coming but I did want to raise. Was this correct thinking?) Both MP and BTN call the $80. (Pot: Main $152, Side $126)
FLOP: J84 (both MP and BTN have $235 and $212 left respectively). I decide to jam. MP calls and BTN calls.
TURN: 6 RIVER: 2. My KK is good. (BTN flashed 89s with the J on the flop the same suit).
I scoop a decent pot, but I wondered if I played it correctly.
9 Replies
Might have raised 120 instead of 80 pre, but I like your flop jam. If you tried to drag them to the river, villains might have found a fold, or caught a cheap 2nd pair.
If you can rip it with weak eights & weak jacks calling, Iād not get up until everyone else left. You have found the right game.
Nice scoop. But pre I’d go bigger than $80 like you’re giving MP/BTN too good a price with dead money in there.
Agree w/ both the above.
Creating a side pot to play for >>> jamming pre >>> calling.
Minor maybe but ~$95ish seems a lot better than $80.
I don’t see why 80 isn’t enough given both villains are only in for 12 and we want to keep them in. This hand is well played imo.
Giving Hero’s stack size is misleading when the other players are shorter.
It looks like everyone started the hand with less than $325 so I think the sizing is fine and the whole hand looks good.
Yeah, I like the way OP played it.
You are not supposed to post results initially.
I mean, against these players apparently you played it perfectly lol.
When a shorty shoves into you with deeper action pending, you aren't sizing your re-raise relative to the shove--that player is already all in and going to fully realize their equity regardless, it doesn't make sense to think in terms of. what price you're laying them--you are raising relative to how much the players left to act cold call.
So your size is fine if even a bit big. Even a min-click ($64) lays the IP players about 2:1 to win a 3-way pot, which seems sufficient. I'll be honest, I don't know of a good way to do this math in game.
Flop is a pretty broken spot, so just bet whatever you think will be called by Jx-. So again, if you're getting two calls here, including 98s, then don't change a thing at least against these players.
Against some other players, you might wanna make it a bit more plausible that you're going for thin equity denial by betting more like 1/3 of your stack and GIIing later; against some others, you might check a lot of your value to jam later. Whatever your strategy is, QQ-KK is going to go in your most aggressive bucket, so again, well played here.
Thank you all for your input!
Jon
