Kings are Killing me

Ok, so I'm once again trying to make the move from .05/.10 no limit to .10/.25 no limit. I've failed spectacularly every time I've tried to make the move in the past, so I've tightened my game up a little this time.

I'm doing well except for one glaring hand. Pocket kings are costing me 16BB/hand. Literally, in the last 5 times I've had them, I've been all-in preflop against Aces. I know this is a bad run, but am I playing KK too aggressively here? I gladly put myself all-in preflop with KK on the .05/.10 tables, and kings were doing very well for me there.

I guess the question is, are players too smart at .10/.25 to stack with worse than KK, or is this just a bad run of cards?

I've been having that problem all week. K/K is doomed.
Aloevera's seen me get screwed with Kings a few times, then she busted me when I had Kings and she made a set of 4's.

This all started a week ago Sunday, when I wished Tenbob pocket Kings just minutes before the bubble of the Sunday Millions. He got them, then got felted when I think Q/Q made a set a hair before the bubble.

I mean, I don't believe in luck, but random patterns can be weird sometimes.

If your getting all in with kings pre-flop at nl$25 and losing then its just the bad side of variance don't beat youself up about it.

If you are losing a lot on KK post-flop then maybe a little work on your game is needed. Look in the golden archive at the WA/WB concept, have a look at some of the pot control articles and go from there.

Getting tighter as you move up in limits generally is the opposite of what you want to do.

Anyway, obviously you're just on the bad side of variance right now. I had a period of like 7500 hands or something where AA was my biggest loser by far, now it's the biggest winner again. Getting KK all in pre flop is definitely a winning play in the long run.

Just a horrible run...I'm not a math wiz but if you get dealt KK, the chances someone else at a full ring table has AA would be roughly 221/9 (but actually a little higher given your KK is removed from the deck). So roughly, 1 in 25 times you have KK you will run into AA. Now consider you hit that 1 in 25, five times in a row??? It's almost like playing roulette (realizing roulette has more numbers) and the same exact number comes up 5 times in a row, astronomical!!!! Have you ever thought about trying Keno???

Yeah, that's what I thought, but it's good to hear someone else say it.

I actually made a mistake in the OP. I meant to say out of the last 5 times, I got all-in preflop against aces 4 times. But, those were 4 full-buy wipeouts, so they really hurt the BR; and that's still a statistical quagmire. Luckily, I'm currently back in the black at .10/.25 thanks to some outstanding performance by QQ. (if I said anything bad about the ladies in the past, I take it all back) So, I won't have to drop back to .05/.10 just yet.

Well, the experiment is over, once again. My BR was barely high enough to step into .10/.25 NL, and after this horrible run continued, I now have to drop back to .05/.10 before my BR is in serious trouble. More big losses: if I hit trips, I lost to higher trips, and my full houses ran into quads. KK is still sitting at a Win% of 44.

I still have to go back through the HHs to see how many of those were actually bad beats, and how many were badly played.

I always wondered why you needed such a high BR to play at certain stakes, but now that I've seen firsthand just how bad a downslide can get, I fully understand it. Hopefully someday I see the other end of that bell curve.

dam pockets !!

How many hands are we talking about? I've been back to playing $1/$2, and Kings just suck donkey balls.

142x KK = $594 (aka 3 stacks) Showdowns won = 54.8%

For comparison's sake:
146x JJ = $1625 (aka 8 stacks) Showdowns won = 67.6%
149x QQ = $1636 (aka 8 stacks) Showdowns won = 63.6%
125x AA = $1277 (aka 6 stacks) Showdowns won = 65.3%

That's not showdown %, that's 44 Win%! My showdown % was zero. Again, it's not a statistical sampling, by any means. We're only talking 1500 hands or so.

maybe I should be AceCurtis....lol

I do ok with cowboys most the time, but when I get pocket QQ's I just look at them and say " OH NO" I seem to lose with them more than any other pocket pairs.

I used to feel the same way about Jacks.
I hated them. I kept flopping sets with them and losing to straights and flushes. I remember it being one of my top money losing hands for my first 15,000 or so poker hands.
I don't think I've altered my play with them, but things have turned around and it's worked it's way back up towards the top of my winning hands.

I still make a lot of "Uh oh, J/J" jokes when I IM my friend reports about what how I'm doing in a tournament.

Oh... and I think pocket Jacks knocked me out in 4 of my last 6 CC tournaments.

Anyway, you can't let bad luck with one particular hand hamper your play, if you have been making he correct plays.

I know last week I played a ring game with some CC'ers and got over-aggressive with K/K after a rag-flop with Aloevera. I figured she had an over pair, but she actually flopped a set of 4's to double up through me. Knowing how she plays, I totally overplayed my hand and deserved to lose the maximum.
After the flop, stacking with an overpair is a whole lot riskier.

Uh, so you got dealt Kings like 7 or 8 times? That sample size is so far from meaningful, there's no point even thinking about it.

flopping straights w jj? ......small straight?

I'm only kidding but it reminds me of a buddy that was learning the game a couple years ago. He'd have a 4 card straight and flop over his cards at showdown and declare a small straight.

we called him yahtzee

Lost about $22 with pocket K's last night.

Had a super-aggressive high stack sitting at the table. He would call almost any raise pre-flop so I raise it up to $3.50 (35xBB) and he calls instantly. Flop was 10/6/3 (rainbow) so I lead out with a $5 bet and he pushes all in. He had pocket 10's and hit a 10 on the flop. Took my whole stack.