I thought for a long time and decided to call the river. What do you guys think?

888Poker, $2.70 + $0.30 - Hold'em No Limit - 1,200/2,400 (300 ante) - 8 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit

UTG: 98,059 (41 bb)
UTG+1: 46,894 (20 bb)
MP: 95,562 (40 bb)
MP+1 (Hero): 43,285 (18 bb)
CO: 68,922 (29 bb)
BU: 55,037 (23 bb)
SB: 190,194 (79 bb)
BB: 174,602 (73 bb)

Pre-Flop: (6,000) Hero is MP+1 with K K
3 players fold, Hero raises to 4,800, 3 players fold, BB calls 2,400

Flop: (13,200) Q 5 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 6,000, BB calls 6,000

Turn: (25,200) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 11,000, BB calls 11,000

River: (47,200) 3 (2 players)
BB bets 23,600, Hero calls 21,185 (all-in)

You're never good there. Do you think he would suddenly bluff the river after you've shown aggression on 3 streets? In the micro stakes when a player shoves the river into the aggressor on a card that complete a a big hand, he usually has that big hand. So you called and lost to a flush huh?

8k flop, jam turn

Agree with this

7k flop, jam the turn. Villain can fold a load of his range vs 8k. But 7k, now, that is more reasonable.

18BB pre with KK stands for all-in.

I was affraid of the flush and thought it was more likely he had the flush than that he is bluffing. But I also didn't like the idea of playing a crippled all-in-or fold stack after this hand.
So I pressed time bank, thought a long time, took the risk, I called, and I won!

But even though I won the hand I still doubt if I played the situation correct

Well that's why I said usually

I do think you will lose there 8/10 times.

We want to be getting our chips in either pre or at least by the turn. We need to be sizing a bit bigger on all streets.

nah a min raise is fine. You can't just shove / fold sub 20bbs esp with a premium like KK. You balance this out with occasionally min raising a hand you will fold when shoved on.

You shouldn't be able to get 3 streets with 18bb's preflop so i agree with the other comments. Size up for a turn jam.

so with stack < 20BB u want to occasionally raise hands like 87s and fold it when get shoved in order to justify raise with premium hands? That sounds like dumbass strategy if u ask me esp. in small stakes games lol. just get it in.

He's in the HJ... how can you advocate for only having a push / fold range with 18bbs? You can make a point that having a balanced strategy isn't all that important in the small stakes, but come on man. And.. if you do it with KK I guess u would suggest shoving 18 bigs from the HJ with AA? Just seems like you're value cutting yourself to me if you're shoving premiums and never finding a raise off of 18bb.

1) balancing does not make much sense in small stakes
2) you don't have luxury to raise/fold 11% of your stack with the bottom of your range just to balance raising/call with the top of your range.
3) often you will have difficult time to play KK postflop with your tiny stack.

It should be really easy to play KK postflop with this stack size: you plan to get it in on any non-Ace flop.

I already acknowledged that there was a case for not staying balanced. All I'm saying is that if you only have a shove / fold range off of 18bbs from the HJ that is a leak in your game.

Bet you don't raise QQ+ to 4x pre and 2.2x everything else at small stakes. That strat would print if balance doesn't matter.

Perverts who like to raise with KK instead of gii, consider the following hand.
It's PKO $22, ITM, 400 of out 4600 left

PokerStars - 1600/3200 Ante 320 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 32.46 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
BTN: 40.38 BB (VPIP: 40.63, PFR: 18.75, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 32)
SB: 22.78 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 32)
BB: 15.43 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 15.63, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 32)
Hero (UTG): 22.45 BB
UTG+1: 16.03 BB (VPIP: 6.25, PFR: 6.45, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 32)
MP: 26.79 BB (VPIP: 15.63, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 32)
MP+1: 39.86 BB (VPIP: 31.25, PFR: 25.81, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 32)
MP+2: 36.27 BB (VPIP: 23.61, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 8.82, Hands: 72)

9 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has K K

Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls 2 BB, SB calls 1.5 BB, fold

Flop: (7.9 BB, 3 players) 6 7 6
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN bets 3.95 BB, SB raises to 20.68 BB and is all-in

What do you do?

I don't play small stakes)

really? even on paired and monotone flops? sounds really spewing.

Gah - I was going to say that OP was getting a crazy ridiculous price and that sometimes maybe we do just have to call off with our KK here, but then he posted results, so take my statement with a grain of salt imo.

I do think that it's not unreasonable to suggest that villain just completely spazzes with Qx or like 77 or 88 or even some total airball enough of the one to justify calling river, but you're not wrong even at this price it's gonna be close.

I disagree with (3) - having a smaller SPR shohld make playing KK easier post flop as we can't make such large equity mistakes.

With (2) I think you can make an argument both ways - but I have no problem having non all in RFI ranges for ~15bb effective stacks. I'd say it's going to depend on a lot of variables. Again though there are definitely times where we just want to be open ripping our KK and AA and what not pre at OPs stack depth.


Calling this off and feeling fairly comfortable about it because; we're at the top of our range, we're slightly underepped, SB shouldn't be flatting much 6x on his stack size vs our UTG open (and our stack size) - so we're really only scared of BTN (who granted appears to be a bit stationy Pre but also shouldn't really have too many better hands and can have a lot of worse hands).

Look it sucks when someone has it, but congratulations to them I guess in this exact spot - especially with a reasonably low SPR. It also sucks that we don't cover anyone in this PKO but again, ce la vie if they had it.

Not at all. When you start the hand with 18bb and have KK, your thought process should be focused on trying to get your chips in unless you have a crystal clear read you're beaten. When effective stacks are short people will commit with much weaker holdings.

okay, I will just stick to my commitment to f*ck balances in small-mid stakes and push KK with the stack <20BB all the time. gl buds. gg.

Reshove?? If you don't like the majority of flops 20bb deep, don't ever play cash where you are 100bb+ effective. And lol at KK hard to play 18bb deep post flop. Just shove and take down the blinds instead with the 2nd best hand in NLHE. That's how you exploit poor opponents and micro stakes.

I'm sorry you lost

I often see comments like that in this forum, but I was never able to understand what it really means. Obv. it does not mean that you are really sorry, why would you? Is it some kind of meme?