Playing Kings in a tourney

Dealt KK....

Do you re-raise all in if someone puts a big bet out, or just call and see what comes on the flop assuming the bet is big enough?


I'm just curious what other opinions are on this. It seems to me about 68% of the time (very precise statistic I'm sure) that someone raises big pre-flop, or re-raises my raise, they have at least an ace in their hand, AK AQ AJ AA, or else they have a good sized pocket pair 10 10 JJ QQ, etc.

So far I've just been pushing all in with KK, and losing to the AA AK AQ, etc. I can't think of the last time someone with an ace didnt hit on me.

I know in a tourney if this doesn't force me all in I have to take the push preflop because I will probably have the best hand and win, but when you are the one who would be going all in, how do you handle it?

I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with pushing all in preflop with KK, but it does seem a little blunt, without really needing much skill/finesse. If someone has AK and pushed hard preflop, and they miss the flop, chances are they will bet it out hard trying to steal the flop and thinking, so a good amount of the time you won't lose much by seeing the flop. If an Ace comes you can bet hard, and then fold to a re-raise as the ace will be a scare card for someone with pockets or who knows what else...

I probably wouldn't be thinking this through that much, as I dont get KK all the time, and lots of time I dont get action pre-flop (which is fine, if my bets keep Ace + crap out, good.), but tonight I think I lost with KK 4 times out of 4, pushing all in preflop.

Of course there is the dreaded question, how to dodge AA when you have KK (I had that happen 2x tonight, and another time I had AA and he had KK).

Anyway just rambling.

I guess you should be lucky you has kk four times in one game lol.

But if somebody raises big or sometimes goes all in, then sure, you gotta go all in your self. Like you said, kk is a great hand preflop, and hope that you get a call from somebody with a lower pair, if you walk into AA then thats just the way the game is. But even if you wait and see the flop and an ace comes out then your in big trouble, so going all in with KK is a good idea because you will push of hands like A5 or AJ/10, but we all know people play differently so I agree with you and try and take those blinds down, but at the same time if there is only a few players on your table it might be good to slow play them.

It all depends on the stage of tournament you are in. I personally dont find a reason to push all in with KK in the early to middle stages of the tournament unless I have a good read on a player. Why risk going broke when its not necessary. Call the large raise and see the flop. If KK isnt your winning hand this time then take the minimum loss and you live to play some more. You cant win the tournament on the rail.

I got KK 4 times tonight, not in one tourney Got knocked out too quick for that to be all in one tourney.

Yeah I think the issue is when KK all in wont force out AJ A10 A5, etc... which happens in these $20 tourneys with lots of entries,

JeeDub84 said:

It all depends on the stage of tournament you are in. I personally dont find a reason to push all in with KK in the early to middle stages of the tournament unless I have a good read on a player. Why risk going broke when its not necessary. Call the large raise and see the flop. If KK isnt your winning hand this time then take the minimum loss and you live to play some more. You cant win the tournament on the rail.

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I agree abit with you that you dont wont to go out in the first few hands or even the first 20 hands.But also it depends if there have been callers b4 you or you might be next to the guy who raises and there might be mor callers after you.

But you cannot let someone bully there way especially when you have got the good hand. obviously if you call and it sounds like you have been beat alot by calling this hand then you know what can happen. But most of the time this hand will steal blinds :smile:

Well it all depends on the size of the raise if it is under 30% of you chips stack call if no ace hits all in on the flop if a ace hit you should be able to get away from it if no ace hit and opponent turns over aa not much u can do m8