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  • Playing KK VS an aggressive opponent

    Posted by 7high11 on November 20, 2022 at 12:05 pm

    Once again, $1-$2 live getting myself in a pickle! Villain description here i think is also very important. He and another guy had moved from a broken table. $300 max buy-in, but you can bring your full stack from a broken table. Villain has about $2K (or even a little more) in front of him, and the other guy has about $600. I say to the other guy next to me “That must have been some table.” and his response is the “Yeah, he’s just hitting everything!”

    About 45-60 minutes later. The big stack has been playing VERY aggressively and making very large bets. Sometimes with the goods, sometimes making it look like he has the goods. At least twice he has made very large bluffs and shown them. However, he doesn’t appear to be a maniac, just a very aggressive player knowing the right time to use it.

    To the hand. Villain opens from UTG+2 to $10 ($8-$10 has been standard for the table)(8 handed). By now his stack is at least $2500. He gets one caller. Folded to me on the BB with two red kings. I raise to $40, Villain calls, caller folds. I think I can still put him on a reasonably large range, but i think he has folded most of his true junk at this point. I also feel he has likely capped his range taking out AA, KK, QQ and probably even JJ. I think the stacks are just about right for him to set mine (I have $440 to start the hand), but maybe he folds the smallest pairs to my raise. About $85 in the pot after rake.

    Flop is 2s, 4c, 7s. I don’t think the flop hit either of us well. I think I have an equity advantage with over pairs, but he has a nut advantage with sets (77, and a discounted 22 or 44?). However, I know I didn’t think that clearly in real time. I just thought “I don’t think he hit this board”. I believe that on this board I am supposed to bet infrequently, but when I do it should be for a large size. Being just about at the top of my range I decide to bet $100. He thinks for a short time and coolly slides in a full stack of green ($25) for a raise to $500. This is one of the largest bets I’ve ever seen made at $1-$2 at this poker room. I tank. No made flushes, no straights. Virtually no two pair in his range. That leaves sets and draws. My feeling is that his is not likely to raise so large with a set. Hence I strongly weight him toward a flush draw (not many straight draws, mostly “wheels”).

    I’ve been concentrating hard on not playing with “scared money”. I call and turn over my kings. He turns over As6s for the nut-flush draw and two back door straight draws. Turn is a brick and the river is the 3s.

    I lost a full 1.5 buy-ins on one hand, but I came away feeling I did the right thing, and didn’t (and don’t) think it was a bad call. Am I right?

    I bought back in for $200 and ran that back up to $525 for an overall win of $25 for the night. Oh, and by the way, I won a High Hand jackpot for $1000! So overall a good night despite the hand. But based on past discussions here, I THINK the call was an improvement in my overall game?

    bchip replied 1 year, 4 months ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • yamel

    Member
    November 20, 2022 at 2:20 pm

    I think you played this hand fine and it’s just a cooler. With KK and v having potential draws and a somewhat capped range I don’t think you are deep enough to fold this flop. It would have to be a read that v is not capable of doing this with bluffs or worse pairs, which doesn’t sound like the case. I snap call here and don’t feel bad about it. Just think you’d be happy to get it in vs a flush draw and run it 100 times. He just got there this one time.

    Just last night I got it in on flop KK vs wild v that had top pair on T53 and he hit a T on river. You just rebuy and talk to v on making a nice hit. I want to keep that player in my game if he’s going to pay me off light.

  • binkley

    Member
    November 22, 2022 at 7:14 pm

    I agree that you played this hand just fine. We’re playing an opponent that is aggressive, is running hot, and is likely willing to put it in light or with a draw. It’s an unfortunate run-out. Good job shrugging off the loss, buying back into the game, and ending up with a profit.

    Some minor comments: I would prefer a larger 3bet size. When OOP, my default would be 4x the open size plus 1x for any callers. In this case, I would have made it $50.

    On the flop, the pot is about $110. You bet $100 and have a remaining stack of $290.

    V call would make the pot $310. By putting you all-in, this is essentially a pot-size raise. Even though V put out $500 in chips, the bet is actually $390 (calling the $100 bet plus a raise of your remaining stack). Even though the bet is big for this game, it’s a reasonable bet for the situation. Good job on calling.

  • bchip

    Member
    November 23, 2022 at 6:52 pm

    Strongly agree with Eric. The initial raise should have been a bit larger. But’s that’s quibbling.

    The only thing I might have done differently is make the flop bet a bit smaller. Thus ensuring that you keep his weaker holdings in the hand, but still setting up a jam on the turn or river (depending on sizing).

    He made that decision for you by raising in a situation where you are trying to get all in by the river, or inducing him to make a mistake. Inducing worked. Well played. Bad result.

    Don’t think I’d call this a cooler, just the wrong end of variance. Not much else to say.

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