At least one player I described this hand to thought that my decision shouldn't be that hard and I should have acted more quickly.

Villain raises UTG to 8. One caller. I 3bet OTB to 30 with KK. SB flats with about 50 behind. Villain shoves for 250. I tank.

Here is what I considered:

1. I have never played with him before but he is clearly more of a table games player who isn't completely clueless about poker, but lacks the sophistication to ever do something like a squeeze play. He's likely to just play his cards and not bluff very much.
2. On a previous hand, facing a $30 river bet into a $100 pot on a 77227 board, he tanked and told his opponent he put them on a 7 before making a crying call with TT. (His hand was good.)
3. He doesn't 3bet preflop with AK.
4. He showed no hesitation in folding QQ on a JT2 flop facing a bet and a raise. (His hand was good.)
5. He overbet shoved with the second nut straight on a flop with a possible flush draw and several opponents.
6. Before he 4bet shoved, he hesitated, which was either hollywooding or legitimate indecision about whether to raise or how much to raise. He didn't ask how much I had behind.

In general, he's a straight-forward MUBSy, fit-or-fold player, based on a two-hour sample size. A friend thought it was a snap-call because folding kings preflop is bad. I think that I should take the time to go over everything I listed (and I was already gathering my list mentally as I was figuring out my raise size) and it's not a waste of time even if you are calling an all-in preflop with KK 99% of the time.

Am I overthinking (which is a problem I have for life in general) or doing my due diligence? How long would it take you to decide if you wanted to call or fold in this spot?

Your allowed to take a minute to think before shoving $250 into the middle of a poker table


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Screw 'em, you're allowed to think at a poker table. Everyone's going to tell you that this is a clear and easy call, but you're not required to pull a Hellmuth and jump out of your seat as you shovel your chips forward into the pot as fast as humanly possible.

Dude raises UTG and then 3x pot 4 bet jams. Yes, this play is scary and tanking anything less than AA is completely fine.

I think what they're saying to you is since you don't have any reads on the player such as him being an ultra nit that you've played with for hundreds of hours and you confidently know that he will only do this with AA, everyone else is pretty much a snap call for just over 100 big blinds.

nothing worse than a 1/2 player tanking with KK. Makes me want to quit the game entirely

Quick call

With an 'ordinary' OP I would think that this post is leading us down a predetermined path, but not so here.

V described as obvious 'card' playing and over-worry when others show aggression ... we have 'aggression' here with the 3-bet. V hesitation could be from the fear of losing 'a bet' this large and/or knowing that this probably isn't the right poker play ... or really not knowing what to do here. Any inexperienced Player will pause at the thought of putting 'that much' money into a potentially vulnerable spot. V probably never placed a single table game wager of this size before, could cause a pause.

Hero didn't rule out QQ, but indicates AK/AKs is not 'out there'. Really doubt we can toss in all six combos of QQ (How did the PF action go in the other TT/QQ hands?) and I'm not even considering JJ. So we have 6 combos of AA, one combo of KK and 2? combos of QQ. That's 6-2-1 and only $11 dead money (call $220 to win/chop $299) ... That's not covered here by any means when we are heavily leaning towards a 81/19 spot.

The only saving grace here is if we think that this Player is just fed up with making 'all' these tough decisions (Quads, overpairs, overshoves) and his range has leaked down to JJ/QQ ... another stretch IMO.

Back to the question .. I 'always' think and observe unless facing a reg. I want to see the Player's behavior a bit. Obviously I don't do too much of this with AA HU, but I certainly would take 'some' time in this spot, no question. I would most definitely engage this Player with table talk if HU here. I can find some folds unless I go by 'the rule' (which I don't), but even if I did I would tank a bit.

My other thoughts here are that better opportunity is available for those chips to wander into my stack, either by aggression to get folds or to snap off/draw into an over-bet. All over-bets to this point have been the nuts, eh? But that was with other 'scare' cards on the Board, this is PF. Nobody likes to get shown QQ when folding KK, but if by some stretch this guy has an inferior hand here we might be able to loosen up his play and create even more 'safer' exploitative spots. GL

all those reasons you listed,, I dont see why folding kk here is not an option . him folding qq on said board should be your biggest signal , he has better than ak and possible even better than qq

If somebody in front of you shoved you are always justified in at least taking a moment preflop to think unless you are last to act and have AA.

How long you are justified depends on the situation. How long did SB and villain take to act is a big factor in this case.

Usually the only thing that really annoys me in these situations is a player who had lots of time to plan tanks. If the guy in front of you spend half a minute thinking about their action you already had a good chunk of time to think about how to respond.

Please do.


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