Problems with pocket kings

Hand:

This was posted by PokerVerdict's Hugo Martinon TwoPlusTwo and can be viewed here

“this hand is from the £5/£10 no limit game at the Vic in London (known as £250 no limit). i have about £3,500 in front of me and the villain about £2,500.

the villain was, basically, a total bluff-crazy spewtard. when i first sat down i thought he was just hyper-laggy, but as time went on it just seemed like he had no real thought behind his bluffs. many a time he would check-raise one of the local rocks only to be met by a huge all-in to which he would sheepishly fold. plus his large overbets on the river were continually being looked up (about 8 times out of 10 he would insta-muck when called). he told us his regular game was the 20/40 no limit at the commerce. when i first sat down he had about £8k in front of him, most of which he had bluffed off by the time this hand had rolled around.

i limp utg with KK, there's another limper and now villain makes it 35. there's a couple more callers including a very strong player in the BB (who has us both covered, prob about £20k in front of him). i call, with my thinking being that i want to keep the pot small and that it'll be obvious what my hand is if i now re-raise. i just felt my stack wasn't the right amount to be re-popping it OOP.

anyway, 5 of us see the flop which is J T 2 with two hearts. i check, another player checks and villain makes it 300. fold back to me and now i make it 1200. guy in the middle folds and villain goes all in for another 1300. i call and lose to villain's JT.” - Hugo Martin.

Analysis.

The first thing to notice about this hand is the stack sizes. Both players have well over two hundred big blinds - a situation which is relatively unusual in cash games - which also has a massive influence on how the hand is played. I regularly play in an £1/£1 cash game where players can buy in for a maximum of £500, and often have to deal with these types of tricky deep stacked situations against crazy players. Here I want to look at how I would have played this hand and try and explain the logic behind each move I typically make in this spot.

Firstly, I look down at kings, in first position, with a bluffing machine at the table. Many players first thoughts here are “right, now I’m gonna win that monster pot”. My thoughts here are “oh dear, this is going to get messy”. The reason I have such a pessimistic view in this situation is that big pairs are extremely difficult to play super deep stacked, you seem to either lose monster pots, or make big lay downs that you regret for the rest of the evening.

The first thing I do here is make a pot size raise to £35. Kings are a big favourite pre flop over all hands except aces and I want to try and get as much money in the pot pre flop as possible. Another reason that I have no problem raising here, is that habitual bluff crazy players usually don’t really care if you have raised, they plan to bluff you regardless - limping or raising seems to have little effect on their plans. For arguments sake, lets say that the caller before the villains raise decides to fold after your raise, and the villain decides to make a similar percentage raise, say to around £50 (what’s in the pot already, as before with the £35 raise). Lets also hypothetically say that the strong player and the small blind still call, looking to stack the bluffing machine with any hand due to the incredible implied odds given by the bluffing machine (a completely standard play for skilled players). The action returns around to you. There is now £185 in the pot.

This is where the hand has to be carefully considered. The first point is that in this spot I’m looking to raise enough to leave myself one roughly pot sized bet, which I intend to put in on basically any flop (barring perhaps an ace high board) if called - I do not want to be playing multiple street poker with a big pair with such deep stacks.

I’m looking for the majority of the money to go in pre flop, with the rest on the flop. I firmly believe (in line with Doyle Brunson’s writings about making oversized bets in deep stacked no limit) that with such deep stacks bet sizes have to be adjusted towards the stacks of the players in the pot, not just towards the size of the pot. As a result raising more than the size of the pot is a completely legitimate strategy against very deep stacked players. Raises also have to oversized when there are numerous players to act behind you - the favourable pot odds they will get from each others calls mean you have to make bet sizes bigger.

I have a stack of around £3450 when it comes back round to me. I would make a raise here to about £650 into a pot of £185. This bet leaves me with a stack of around £2850, but more importantly, if all the players call, the pot will be left at £2790 - enough that I can feel comfortable putting the rest of my stack in if an ace does not flop. It is also not so much that if any of the players behind me moves all in (I’m not folding kings to the spewy player), I am not completely pot committed, and have the ability to fold if I’m very sure they have been slyly playing aces (VERY sure - it’s not a good idea folding kings pre flop too often).

The key problem with this strategy is if two of the players fold, but one calls, most likely with the intention of getting you off the hand later. In this spot, the pot would be £1490 with me having an operating stack of around £2850. In this situation I think I go broke with the hand on any flop that does not include an ace, either going all in to any bet made by the solid player; or betting £1300 if checked too, with the intention of calling an all in or moving the rest in on the turn. Either way, by getting about a quarter of your stack in pre flop, you have priced out set mining and connector plays, and really only leave yourself open to an ace flopping (in which case you can probably get away from the hand anyway).

When playing super deep stacked the game becomes much more like chess, with each bet having to be carefully considered in terms of it’s effect on the pot streets later. Often Hugo wins a big pot here when the player hits a jack or ten high board, but he also goes broke a lot when the player hits a monster. The one thing I really dislike about this hand is that most of the money goes in with Hugo well behind - a factor which playing the hand another way would definitely avoid - which makes me err towards being able to get all the money in by the flop.