So I decided on getting tricky with KK UTG
sb and bb complete and an ACE hits the flop and I get checked to and decide to min 7k .
Turn comes and I'm faced with a shove.

I am not a big fan of this "getting tricky". You had 8BB to start the hand, and you are probably open jamming any other hand than AA or KK. At least if you are someone, who dont normally limp. And unless your opponents are really dumb, this should be very obvious to them, and you never want to put yourself in a situation, where your hand is basically completely face up.

Also with KK there is a lot of value in denying equity to random rag aces in particular, and if you dont get action on an open jam, thats totally fine. You still increased your tiny stack by more than 30% just picking up the blinds and antes. Next time you are open jamming KJs, and you really want people to fold, so just use a balanced strategy and dont feel, you must do something really weird, just because you have AA or KK.

As played this is obviously the worst possible flop for KK, and I would just fold and survive to see another hand. You still have 7BB left, which is just enough to potentially make a comeback in the tournament. Its a 3-way pot, and its certainly not unlikely, that someone could have an ace. Maybe not a great ace, but even if its A2 offsuit, you are still drawing to just two outs.

I would not do this for many reasons. One is if you are playing with players paying attention then when you check (unless you check a lot which would be another problem) off of this stack or even just min raise then good players will know you have a strong hand. You should never be raise folding (maybe minus some deep final table ICM situation) off of 8 BBs so others will know its effectively a jam and then you probably tell the world you are strong by doing that. If you are going to be jamming A8 off here as you should be then you need to be jamming KK as well. Second reason is I can see on the screenshots this is a hyper so you have less time to be tricky and have to be more concerned about chipping up and chipping up fast. Last is the blinds are getting large here and both SB and BB have a big enough stack to take a risk in a hyper where they know they need to get chips so they should be calling you a little lighter here which is what you want. You should be jamming it in here and letting them call your jam as they will more often than if it was a regular deep stacked tourney.

As far as the hand goes not much you can do other than fold or rep the ace yourself with your flop bet that would need to be bigger to rep the ace. It would also commit you but you should have been committed pre anyway. I dont like repping the ace here because you will never get another ace to fold but it is an option.

He was a really good player and noticed as much as you all did that the 7k cbet was weak sauce.
If he had the ace he would have checked the turn.
If he checked the turn i would have given up to a bet on the river.

As a good player He spotted my weakness and attacked with air, giving a hand like kk fold equity
I made the call

We were down to 40~ players out of 800+ and I felt if i raised I would get only the blinds.
I may have played the hand oddly OR BADLY AS MANY CONSIDER.
but did I?
There is one fact though ...... I GOT MAX VALUE

Thats what I consider GTO

Originally Posted by AKQ

He was a really good player and noticed as much as you all did that the 7k cbet was weak sauce.
If he had the ace he would have checked the turn.
If he checked the turn i would have given up to a bet on the river.

As a good player He spotted my weakness and attacked with air, giving a hand like kk fold equity
I made the call

Thank you for posting

As we grow in skill we learn to become more exact in our thinking regarding ranges.

Why would they check the turn with 2 pair if you were going to give up most of your range? Which may be typical in your player pool?

So why would you think they would not lead better than the Ace on the turn if as you said they were a good player?

Why would a good player think you would over fold after betting the Ace for your stack size?

"he attacked with air"----Air means nothing a pair of 7's is not nothing -when we analyze this hand we want to ask why did they turn the 7 into a bluff versus your stack size? What range did they expect to limp pre -bet flop and then fold turn?

By being a little more exact about the ranges and the why of this villain's actions it will help us in similar spots.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by eetenor

Thank you for posting

As we grow in skill we learn to become more exact in our thinking regarding ranges.

Why would they check the turn with 2 pair if you were going to give up most of your range? Which may be typical in your player pool?

So why would you think they would not lead better than the Ace on the turn if as you said they were a good player?

Why would a good player think you would over fold after betting the Ace for your stack size?

"he attacked with air"----Air means nothing a pair of 7's is not nothing -when we analyze this hand we want to ask why did they turn the 7 into a bluff versus your stack size? What range did they expect to limp pre -bet flop and then fold turn?

By being a little more exact about the ranges and the why of this villain's actions it will help us in similar spots.

Hope this helps

shoving the 7s as the villian could only mean a few things.
A he thinks he is ahead because of the 7k min cbet on he flop and decides to shove the turn to get value from -66 and less or AK
B. He thinks shoving can make pairs that didnt hit a set fold such as kk qq jj and it protects his hand from the river hitting my range(whatever that is lol )


If YOU had ace rag and flat called the flop slowplaying the ace
would you shove the blank turn or continue the slowplay against an absolute agrro?
I think that decision is quite polarized
So I don't think he had the ace

I don't need ranges and numbers this is psychology
seeya on the tables friend!!

dont over analyze either because thats when you lose the truth of whats actually going on in the hand versus poker hand theory

When I first looked at this hand, I missed the small flop bet from Hero. That does change things somewhat, because it would be strange for AX to check-call flop in a limped pot and then donk jam a blank turn card. He is kind of saying, he turned two pair or a straight, and with SB out of the hand I dont hate making a hero call here, but folding would certainly still be fine as well.

As for why he donk jammed second pair, I have no idea. Maybe he just felt, he had the best hand and wanted to "protect" it. I dont think, he was nessesarely trying to get a hand like KK to fold. Postflop is always going to be weird, when someone limps in with a short stack, and since we should have jammed preflop, there is no point in getting carried away by overanalysing postflop.

Originally Posted by AKQ

There is one fact though ...... I GOT MAX VALUE

That is true, but the difficult thing about poker is, good play dont always get rewarded, and bad play dont always get punished. If the guy had shown you 42 or A5, you would probably not have felt so good about the hand

Originally Posted by fundiver199

That is true, but the difficult thing about poker is, good play dont always get rewarded, and bad play dont always get punished. If the guy had shown you 42 or A5, you would probably not have felt so good about the hand

but thankfully I used reasoning to deduce that a5 was not the case
Thats what I love about poker
I don't want to do what is correct a majority percent of the time
I want to what is correct in the situation I am in , in the moment.

Phill Hellmuth practices playing in the moment and reminds himself of those words constantly

Hi fundiver how you been!!!!
What you think I was gonna post a kk fold on the flop to ace hand analysis??!!?hahahah
not this guy!!!

Originally Posted by 300HPGOD

I would not do this for many reasons. One is if you are playing with players paying attention then when you check (unless you check a lot which would be another problem) off of this stack or even just min raise then good players will know you have a strong hand. You should never be raise folding (maybe minus some deep final table ICM situation) off of 8 BBs so others will know its effectively a jam and then you probably tell the world you are strong by doing that. If you are going to be jamming A8 off here as you should be then you need to be jamming KK as well. Second reason is I can see on the screenshots this is a hyper so you have less time to be tricky and have to be more concerned about chipping up and chipping up fast. Last is the blinds are getting large here and both SB and BB have a big enough stack to take a risk in a hyper where they know they need to get chips so they should be calling you a little lighter here which is what you want. You should be jamming it in here and letting them call your jam as they will more often than if it was a regular deep stacked tourney.

As far as the hand goes not much you can do other than fold or rep the ace yourself with your flop bet that would need to be bigger to rep the ace. It would also commit you but you should have been committed pre anyway. I dont like repping the ace here because you will never get another ace to fold but it is an option.

yes I know .....shove all in with KK next time./I'd never rep the ace here btw unless i had air of course.. and I was in position he jammed on me...cant rep an ace when he is already all in lol

I was asking about the turn decision of me being faced with an all in and my opponent giving a readable tell.

The reason I didn't post the showdown or that I called the all in.
was that I wanted other members to come to the same conclusion.

Often times players will find themselves in situations that arent very comfortable
Knowing how to navigate yourself through tough decisions is very important


I started playing number heavy exploitative 15 years ago
I don't teach numbers
I teach my own style and thinking of whatever the F#%# GTO is lol

Kinda sad ......no one in the thread said to call with KK
I thought it was quite obvious and I made the instacall

Since my KKs are about 24% over the last month (I dont shove em either but I also NEVER limp) I'm never playing them this way - and I'm never making the call either, because my opponents show up with any rag Ace here - usually a luckbox 2 pair over 50% of the time.
You got lucky - and congrats on that, but dont expect the villain not to have at least A/2 off next time.

Originally Posted by theANMATOR

Since my KKs are about 24% over the last month (I dont shove em either but I also NEVER limp) I'm never playing them this way - and I'm never making the call either, because my opponents show up with any rag Ace here - usually a luckbox 2 pair over 50% of the time.
You got lucky - and congrats on that, but dont expect the villain not to have at least A/2 off next time.

BB was dealt a rando hand in a limp pot, i just dont see him check calling a 1bb raise with ax
I could see a q6 doing that
but we have deduced that he doesnt have an ace.
We are not in 10,000 hands we are in 1 hand right now and we have to be right.
We also have info and dynamics that are very different in EVERY one of those 10,000 spots
I understand the long term ideology and concept
but right now he doesn't have an ace,
I was very confident with my decision in that moment
I play people not cards.
You should know you see me at the tables