Playing KK Preflop.

1. Any Position, First In.

Raise.

There's not much more to say on this subject. Just—raise. Whatever your standard raise is, do it.

Because I am a wordy bastard, I will say two more things:

a. When stacks are deep.

3 bet pots wind up having pretty awkward stack to pot ratios for one pair hands. If you raise to .75 at NL and get 3 bet to , and you elect to just call, there's or .75 in the pot and 200bb deep, 94 behind. This yields an SPR of about 7.5, which is right in the middle range where one pair hands are uncomfortable. For this reason, I don't hate the idea of reducing your raise size in deep stacked games. If you raise to .50 and get 3 bet by someone who mashes the bet pot button on FTP, you'll get raised to about .25 or so. This puts .50 or in the pot with behind, and you have a bit more maneuvering room at an SPR of around 9. If you reduce your raise size to .25, the 3 bet will be to about and there will be in the pot with behind, yielding an SPR in the neighborhood of 12. Now we are approaching the high SPRs where we have some maneuvering room, and we can find some hero folds when necessary.

When I am at a reg-infested deep stack table, I reduce my raise sizes. I do this because my skill edge is reduced (or gone; plenty of regs are better than I am) and I benefit more from workable SPRs than do the regs who are better than I am. It also has the advantage of allowing me to open a wider range of hands. If I felt like I had a skill advantage over the table, I would welcome the lower SPR that causes the hand to be more difficult to play, simply because my opponents are more likely to make bigger mistakes than I am. So you wouldn't vary your raise size at a table where you saw, for instance, people shipping top pair for 200bb.

b. When effective stacks are <80bb.

Don't get fancy. Just get the money in as expeditiously as possible. Raise and shove over a 3 bet preflop. Don't think about calling and seeing a flop, don't think about folding, just get the money in. If you raise and just get one caller playing an 80bb stack, the SPR will still be in the neighborhood of 12, and you can, in theory, fold your hand facing aggression. But I'm not sure that is best, and I am pretty sure that getting stacks in on all but the worst boards is going to be +EV.

2. Any Position, with Previous Limpers.

Raise bigger than usual. If they are set mining, punish them for doing so. Your dream scenario is that the limpers have a big gap between their VPIP and their PFR, indicating a passive tendency to call. A big gap is any gap where the PFR is less than half the VPIP. I normally try to remember to raise 5bb +1 for each limper in this spot.
3.Early Position and Middle Position, Facing UTG or UTG+1 Raise.

Other than being in the blinds, this is the toughest preflop decision you have with KK. In one sense, it is an easy decision, because you basically have to 3 bet. You have to 3 bet because your hand is likely the best, and flat calling invites high implied odds hands into the pot behind you. But it is a tough decision in another sense, because it is a play we are basically being forced into, rather than choosing to make. Flat calling in this spot is almost always a big mistake.

4. Late Position Facing a Raise.

In the CO, we can consider flatting, but should strongly prefer 3 betting if any of the players behind has a tendency to call, either because he is a solid reg or because he is a loose fish. If there is any significant chance that the button will call behind you, strongly prefer 3 betting.

On the button, we have the flexibility to flat call. When might we do so? In short, when the position and stats of the initial raiser indicate that 3 betting KK is going for thin value.

KK as thin value: Suppose the initial raise is from a solid nitty reg UTG whose overall stats are 11/9 (ahem, sound like anyone we know?). This villain is positionally aware, so his raising range UTG is about 7%. Poker Stove says that the top 7% of hands are 88+, Aqo+ and Ats+, but we know this guy prefers set mining hands, so we change this range to 66+ and AQo+ and Aqs+. Let's assume that he will call our 3 bet with QQ, JJ and some combos of AA and KK. That's less than 1.4% of all hands. We have better than 60% equity against his calling range, but his calling range is only about 1/5 of his raising range, so, 80% of the time, he will fold. Suppose he will 4 bet some combos of AA and some combos of AK (which I will stove as AKs). If he 4 bets AKs and half his AA combos, we only have 37% equity against this range. So we have 60% equity 1.4% of the time (<20% of his raising range he calls with) and we have 37% equity the .5% of hands (<7% of his raising range he 4 bets) and the remainder of the time he folds and we win 3.5bb.

If he calls we have 60% equity. If we assume an average pot size of 100bb, which is pretty huge, we're winning 60% of .00 at , or .00 about 20% of the time.

If we assume that stacks go in when he 4 bets us, we are losing 63% of 100bb , or .50 about 5% of the time

We win 5bb every time our 3 bet ends the hand (@75%).

In ten iterations, we win when he calls, we win .75 when all fold, and we lose .75 when he 4 bets.

Our net profit is , or 3.3ptBB/6.6bb/hand.

Those are just very, very, VERY rough equity calcs that ignore a lot of things. For instance, his ranges are easier to play than ours. When he flats with QQ, he is going to lose a smaller pot than he will win, on average, than when he flats with AA. So you should get the point—there is value 3 betting even a nitty UTG raiser, but we are in thinnish value territory, definitely not fat value territory.

At NL , the best regs are averaging about 4.5ptBB/9bb/hand with KK. So, in terms of value, 3 betting a nitty reg raising in EP is a below average value play. THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT BAD. It just makes it below average for the best regs at .

But now you have to ask yourself: “Self; if I flat call here, can I make, on average, more than 6.6bb/hand, which is sort of my best case scenario if I 3 bet this nit?” I bet your answer is yes. If you flat him , keeping in the parts of his range you beat, you have 71% equity against his total range. Plus, your hand is underrepresented, you have position, and most of the time, his range will be easy to play. An ace on the flop improves 40% of his range—this will be a tough spot for you, but usually will not happen.

A final consideration in deciding whether to 3 bet or call in this scenario is whether one or both of the blinds will call. We don't mind a three way pot so much with KK, but we really don't like a 4 way pot. But if one of the blinds is a drooler, now we have a pretty good situation: the nit is squeezed between the blind and us, so he will tend to play his hand straightforwardly, and we have position in a big pot on a drooler. So when you are looking at the situation, look especially at the big blind, who has more of an incentive to get involved. If he is on the fishy side, consider flatting to induce him into the pot. If both blinds are loose and bad, you should probably go ahead and 3 bet while berating yourself ruthlessly for really bad seat selection.

5. In the Blinds.

You are out of position, and this is a major handicap. You should strongly favor 3 betting. About the only time I consider flatting from the blinds with KK is when I am facing an apparent steal from somebody with a wide stealing range and a very high fold to 3 bet stat. In that case, I will sometimes call to keep in that part of his range that I am crushing pretty badly. But, even in this situation, I will usually 3 bet, simply because, in the long run, I need to show down some KK 3 bets against these players so that my 3 betting range against them isn't all junk.

6. Shipping KK Preflop:

In the last few stats analyses I have done for people where I checked this stat, EVERYBODY has been negative AIPF with KK. All of them have been indiscriminately shipping KK. I just did a stat review Saturday for a well known solid reg at 0. That player was playing a very aggressive preflop game. The player was shipping AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK a lot and AQ and TT a fair amount, as well as other random stuff on occasion, and equity adjusted, was losing $$ shipping all of it against full stackers except, of course, for AA.

Go through your database and look at what people are getting all in with. unless there is an unusual situation, full-stacked people are only shoving AA and KK–this is true even for the 72/41 droolers.

So is our job to simply stop shipping KK preflop? NO! Our job is to create unusual situations where we can ship KK preflop and be perceived to be lighter. Shipping with KK is fine, provided that we are 4 betting a reasonable range. The leak most people have is not that they indiscriminately ship KK preflop, it is that they are not 4 betting a wide enough range. Calling a 5 bet shove with KK is only going to be +EV if you can convince some of the people some of the time that you can 4 bet light. Otherwise you are going to be looking at AA most of the time.

Look, even a drooler can see that you only have AA or KK when you 4 bet. What you have to show the drooler is that you will 4 bet/fold, or 4 bet/call lighter than that. The drooler is not good enough to realize that you are carefully picking your spots. He will make too broad generalizations about your play. So, for example, if you are OTB and there is a crazy aggro 3 bettor in the blinds (say a 6% 3 bet stat) and you steal, the 3 bettor 3 bets, and you 4 bet, there is no bad result for you when you think about how the drooler will view that hand. If you 4 bet fold, say, 77, the drooler will look at that hand and say, “lol, the button was making a stand and then chickened out.” Or something like that. So the next time he raises, and you 3 bet him, he will think, “hah, this is the guy that folds to 4 bets.” Or if you 5 bet ship on the aggro guy with A7s, AK or JJ and it goes to showdown, the drooler will see that hand and think, “wow, this guy ships light,” and the next time you 3 bet him, he will be more likely to get it in preflop.

So you need to be constantly manipulating your image at the table. If you have been card dead, and a nit raises from UTG and you 3 bet and he 4 bets you, his range is significantly narrower than it is when he 4 bets if you have 3 bet somebody on each of the last three orbits. You have to keep your image uppermost in your mind.

7. Is it possible to fold KK Preflop?

Not ordinarily. There are spots where it is ok, but I am not a fan of folding KK preflop. If you find yourself thinking about folding, you have almost certainly misplayed the hand.

What do I mean by that? Well, suppose that the 11/9 UTG raiser described above raises, you 3 bet, and he 4 bets you. Now you think, “oh ****, he does have AA after all.” And you are tempted to make a hero fold. Is folding a mistake? Maybe it is maybe it isn't, but if you are tempted to fold here, then you should have flatted him. Your mistake was not creating a situation where he could be 4 betting light.

There are spots where you can have played the hand properly and find a fold, but they are very rare. Such a spot might be where the 11/9 raises, you 3 bet him, you get cold 4 bet and the 11/9 ships. You are simply never good in this spot. OTOH, I don't recall a spot like this happening to me in the last half million hands, so it's not exactly an everyday occurrence, and even if you ship here knowing that someone has AA. It only has a trivial impact on your win rate. So why bother? Just lol, and call for the entertainment value of watching the board run off with AA v. KK v. QQ. (Only about 32.64% serious here).