A while back I posted saying that I have folded KK to a player I have a read on if he comes over the top of my reraise to go all in. The general consencus what that you should never ever fold KK or even AK preflop. I was just wondering whether people were applying this to limit hold em, or whether they think it holds true in No Limit?

I have tried out this theory over the past couple of weeks and it has cost me a lot of money! I find that when I sit down in a $100 buy in NL game, people with a stack above $50 will generally only be prepared to go all in with KK or AA. There are players, who I would make a note of, that go all in with hands like JJ and AQ. There are also those who buy in with $10 and go all in on any pocket pair or AK - AJ.

However if the betting sequence goes, for example:

Me raise to $5
Opponent reraise to $10
Me reraise to $25
Opponent all in for $100

I think if he doesn't have AA or KK he must be bluffing as what does he think I have.

Would anybody else throw KK away under any circumstances in the above situation?

I've folded KK before preflop, but I had to have a pretty read on the guy. But generally, if someone comes over the top of my prelop raises more than once, in my experience, its usually AA. Against a rock I've layed down KK about 3 times preflop.

AK on the other hand...I've laid down countless times

AKo is not that hard to get away from for me.

KK is another story.

It may be 1/22 chance that an opponent hits AA when you hit KK given no further information , however given that he has reraised all in to a reraise then the chance he has AA must increase to somewhere between maybe 1/5 to 0.95 depending on your read of the player (or remain at 1/22 if he is a maniac in which case I would call all day long).

The problem is if you flat call the reraise and the flop comes down 9 4 2 rainbow, you are still losing all your money unless you are going to then at some point believe he has AA or maybe trips.

It's actually 1/24 times he'll have AA when you have KK.

I think I've done this before, but let's assume he's making the fourth raise with AA, AK, or QQ only (so we have to know he's very tight) - let's just discount the KK because it's very unlikely, and when it does happen we'll split the pot 98% of the time.

There are 6 ways to deal each pair, AA & QQ. There are 16 ways to deal AK (4 suited, 12 unsuited). So that's 28 possible combinations.

So:

Facing AA 6/28 = 21.4% of the time at 18% to win = 3.9%
Facing QQ 6/28 = 21.4% of the time at 82% to win = 17.5%
Facing AK 16/28 = 57.2% of the time at 70% to win = 40%

So in this situation we're 61.4% to win. That's about the same as AQ vs KJ, and don't you love it when you see that scenario?

And if we figure in the opponents who will put it all in with AQ, JJ or worse, this is a huge call.

Moral of the story: Yes, every now and then you'll find yourself up against AA and wish you'd folded. But the times you'll find yourself against a much weaker hand will more than make up for it in the long run.

I must either play at tighter tables than everyone else or they all have me down as supertight in their notes, today I ended up all in holding KK vs AA again! I just don't see normal stacked players going all in preflop with any less. Where do you find these players who are willing to throw $100 in preflop on JJ or AQ please?

Marm,

Where did you get this formula? 17.5% chance? No way.

Here's how I figure it. The chances of AA being dealt are 1/220. So each player at the table has a 1/220 chance or receiving AA when you have KK.

so to figure the probability of another player having AA when you have KK UTG is:

p(no Player has AA) = p(UTG+1 doesn't have aces) * p(UTG+2 doesn't have aces) * . . . . p(BB doesn't have AA)

Where the probability that the player doesn't have aces is

p(doesn't have aces) = 1 - p(AA)

or

p(doesn't have aces) = 1 - (1/220)

So basically, the probability that no other player has AA is:

[1-(1/220)] to the 9th power or

95.9%

So an opposing player will only have AA when you have KK UTG about 4.1% of the time.