Micros - What are the right circumstances to fold KK preflop?

So im talking heads up, villain has at least 100bbs, what to do when:

- we have no stats on villain?
- the villain is tight?
- the villain is loose?
- the villain is tight but has a large 3bet or 4bet stat?

A good example is joining a table, UTG makes a big PFR, hero 3bets 4x and villain shoves

Or... join a table, UTG raises 2.5xbb, CO 3bets 3x, hero on BTN 4 bets 3x, UTG folds and CO shoves

Can we ever lay down KK at these stakes?

Don't fold KK preflop unless you've played against someone a lot and are 100% certain that they only shove pf with AA. If you don't have this information then you cannot be folding.

With no stats, never fold KK.

Unless they show you AA > there really is no possible way folding AA is logical. Players at micros will do crazy things with hands like TT,JJ,QQ,AK

Nope. Not in a million years. You are about as equally likely to run into QQ as you are AA in any of those spots at microstakes. Not to mention all of the people that freely shove AK and TT+.

I think this was a good fold to a 5bet considering the amount of info I have on him...

Too good arm to throw off. With it thou shalt win more than you lose.

pretty conclusive then, don't fold those Kings! Cheers guys

heads up? are you serious? lol don't see a reason to fold them ever heads up i'll take my chances 100% of the time heads up

Heads up, 99% I will call his shove.

If he has AA, then good for him but less likely according to probabilities.

If I lose (outdrawn), then thats poker.

I just had KK in a micro cash game and was 4-bet... I went all-in and was not surprised at all when the guy turned over Aces. Although I had no stats on him, he had just over a full stack and had no fishy tells so had little reason to be lighter.

The flop was so low I don't think I was ever getting away even if I just called, but I dunno, I still feel like I should be finding a way to stop myself from blowing a full stack here.

You need to be cognizant of villain ranges for 4bets. At micros you'll find a lot of players who will only 4bet AA/KK, so a 4bet range of 1% certainly warrents a fold when villain 4bets.

What if we add AK to villain's 4bet range? We hold two Kings so there's 6 ways villain holds AA, 1 way to hold KK, and 8 ways to make AK.
6/15 times (40%) we're an 80/20 dog
1/15 times (7%) we're 50/50
8/15 times (53%) we're 69/31 favorite

100bb stacks
(.40) * (.8[-100bb] + .2[+100bb])
(.07) * (.5[-100bb] + .5[+100bb])
(.53) * (.31[-100bb] + .69[+100bb]) which equals...

.4 * (-80bb + 20bb) = .4(-60bb) = -24bb
.07 *(-50bb + 50bb) = .07(0bb) = 0bb
.53 *(-31bb + 69bb) = .53(38bb)= 20.14bb

Total EV of getting stacks in with KK v {KK, AA, AK} = -3.86bb

You're going to have dead money in the pot though and then account for some % of the time where villain does something unexpected, say 4bets with QQ or 56s or something. Just something to throw out there and generate some thoughts.

Don't fold Kk preflop , dead money + level on micro I always go broke the eyes closed

n3rv said:

I just had KK in a micro cash game and was 4-bet... I went all-in and was not surprised at all when the guy turned over Aces. Although I had no stats on him, he had just over a full stack and had no fishy tells so had little reason to be lighter.

The flop was so low I don't think I was ever getting away even if I just called, but I dunno, I still feel like I should be finding a way to stop myself from blowing a full stack here.

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It's just a full stack. You will lose your stack sometimes. Period. If you can get it all in with KK preflop you're going to make money in the long run. You have to look at the times you double up vs lose rather than just focus on the loss.

Never. Unless you are facing a shove for over 150 big blinds.

Everytime i have KK someone has AA, so it's a instafold. haha

I guess you could fold if you have a very good position in a tournament and will lose a lot ICM if you are wrong by calling. But at any other circunstance it's usually all in all the time, especially at micros

You can answer these questions by asking yourself this....

1. how many times have you seen a villain 5 bet shove ANYTHING less than AA. (and by "a" villain, I mean ANY villain) against a tight v. who 5 bet shoves, it's a puke fold. even at the micro level.

chauncey274 said:

It's just a full stack. You will lose your stack sometimes. Period. If you can get it all in with KK preflop you're going to make money in the long run. You have to look at the times you double up vs lose rather than just focus on the loss.

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Honestly, after being 4-bet pre-flop by a bigger stack, if they call my 5-bet shove I will lose more than I win.

Always same question, always same answer.

Dont fold KK preflop on micros. Yes, you will hit AA from time to time. 5 times as often you will see, TT-QQ and AJ-AK (yes, they will call/shove with AJs). Even smaller pairs are not so uncommon.

Only exception is some DoN, or tourney close to bubble, basically where you dont want to risk, even with good EV+ in chips.

You cannot be afraid to loose whole buy-in. That reason you have BRM and 50 more buy-ins to loose.

bnasp2 said:

Always same question, always same answer.

Dont fold KK preflop on micros. Yes, you will hit AA from time to time. 5 times as often you will see, TT-QQ and AJ-AK (yes, they will call/shove with AJs). Even smaller pairs are not so uncommon.

Only exception is some DoN, or tourney close to bubble, basically where you dont want to risk, even with good EV+ in chips.

You cannot be afraid to loose whole buy-in. That reason you have BRM and 50 more buy-ins to loose.

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Just to clarify here, no-one is scared of losing a full buy-in... but if you have a full stack and someone still has more chips than you and they happily call a 5-bet, it is generally a massive tell that they are a strong player and they have AA more often than not.

People going all-in on a 5-bet with less than AA generally have less chips than you already because they are weaker players, or they are on tilt, and can't even get into a 5-bet or fold situation.

We are talking about what are the right circumstances to fold KK in a cash game, not a tourney. I will happily call KK against shorter stacks all day long but someone who has sat at a cash game for a while and has a bigger stack than average is generally doing something right and will see a flop or fold with TT-JJ and AJ-AQ so I am not so happy about 5-betting all-in in this situation when I do it.

You can still 5-bet and hope to see QQ or AK but it is false hope more often than not against a good player. If we have limited information then stack size is a decent tell of whether they could be a good player or not.

Am I the only one who noticed that the screenshot/hand posted in this thread is from a play money game?

If it's play money, why on earth would you fold KK pre? While you're at it - why bother folding anything pre?

the ones saying they fold everything to 5-bet... wow.. how easy would be to bluff you after getting that information? give anyone a big stack and they would roll over you.

stevenright said:

the ones saying they fold everything to 5-bet... wow.. how easy would be to bluff you after getting that information? give anyone a big stack and they would roll over you.

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No-one said they fold everything to a 5-bet. It becomes pretty obvious if someone keeps trying to 5-bet light.

BigSlickBaby said:

Am I the only one who noticed that the screenshot/hand posted in this thread is from a play money game?

If it's play money, why on earth would you fold KK pre? While you're at it - why bother folding anything pre?

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He was playing a Cardchat League tourney game... he finished 3rd in the MVP list last season so I think he knows his opponents well enough lol.

Pride can be as big of a motivator as money as long as all of the players place a similar value on it... if you actually grind play money up and play it at higher stakes it can be pretty similar to micro stakes real money games.

n3rv said:

No-one said they fold everything to a 5-bet. It becomes pretty obvious if someone keeps trying to 5-bet light.



He was playing a Cardchat League tourney game... he finished 3rd in the MVP list last season so I think he knows his opponents well enough lol.

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Ah, I see. I apologize. I didn't realize it was a league game. No of course, in that case it's irrelevant that it's not a cash game.

I just glanced and saw it and thought it was someone posting a random play money hand and was surprised to see it getting this much attention.

fold if the player is really conservative