I know I've heard you guys throw around "the third raise is always AA"... does that mean a reraise preflop by the same person, or a 3rd... Either way, bit me in the ass (again...)...

2/4 NL...

I'm UTG ($330) w/ KK, raise to $16, MP2 ($535) reraises to $64... I'm swallowing my own tongue as I reraise $200... He puts me allin, and I'm committed... He's got the damned aces... Would you guys just have called his raise instead of reraising... What gave me the courage to make the wrong move was that 2 times in the past 4 hours or so at that table, 2 people went allin w/ me when I had KK... one had AQ, one had QQ... I think TUP said that AA v KK happens only 1 in 25... does that make it a good raise?

Thanks...MVP

You gotta get all your money in there. 9 times out of 10 he won't hold the aces..he'll have QQ or AK..sometimes even stupid hands like 1010 or JJ.

sorry for the loss...but the KK vs AA scenario has happened to all of us. Just make sure you still play the same way next time with KK and hopefully you'll have better luck.

Most people will agree with Kenny. I disagree though.

Over your next 1,000,000 hands...you will have AA vs someone elses KK the same number of times that you have KK vs their AA.

Finding a way to avoind getting stacked when you have KK while making sure you stack them when you have AA makes a big difference in your win rate.

Theres no easy way to tell when they do have AA, so I cant give you a cookie cutter answer but you really dont have to lose your stack every time.

When you do, however, theres no shame in it. Its very tough to avoid.

Why not re-raise the minimum preflop? Then if he comes over the top one more time you're definitely folding -- or maybe calling if he min-reraises you back, so you can try to hit a set on the flop.

Preflop raise: "I have a good hand"
Re-raise: I have AA or KK
3rd raise: Really? Because I got one of those too.
Fourth raise: Yup. In fact, I have AA.

I figure if you can get him to put in that 4th raise before you're pot committed, you can fold your kings. So make your 3rd raise as small as possible when you have kings.

Decent plan, or no?

I dunno K3nt....I've seen too many idiots at my level and below move in with hands that well...shouldn't be moved in with. It might just be impossible for me to throw away kings.

Rambling post about Kings below, I'm a little tired so twice the ramble

If he had AQ, AK, QQ or JJ which some people will come over the top with like that but not call all in, you haven't given him a chance to make a further mistake on the flop which will likely not help either of you.

AA can have my KK's money there is so few times I'm shown AA compared to AQ that I'm willing to gamble it up against all but super rocks, but I would rather do my gambling after looking at the flop against most of my current opponents. For the most part super rocks don't exist in the games I've been playing, but a type of player that makes KK closer to value to QQ-99 preflop and much stronger after seeing the first three cards Ace free. I know that sounds horribly weak tight and doesn't really help you in this situation as you would still lose a stack on most flops, but it has cut down on my variance a lot, as I can better make up my mind especially with position as to the strength of their hand. AQ and smaller pairs will still often play way too hard after all the action they have given up preflop even when they miss, but it gives me a chance to dodge the 3 cards that make me sick to see on the flop.

So it is mostly opponent dependant on how hard I play KK preflop, some people I move in as they will call with a ton of pairs I beat, but not Ax, others I play it like a small pair preflop and KK post flop, and the other more rare super rock smooth call and pray for a set.

Unfortunately, if I would've waited for the flop, as you stated rdale, I still would've lost all my money... Also, in the same game I had someone go allin w/ AQ and QQ, so I figured I had a pretty good shot of it...
K3nt, if he raised me $64, what would the minraise be? $124? If you add that to the other $16, that means I will have $140 in the pot... with $330, what would you consider "pot committed" here...? I'm not asking to be a smartass... I'm actually not sure how you calculate pot committed from not... I have more than 40% of my stack in w/ the 2nd best preflop hand... still a hard laydown in my opinion...

TJ's saying that the third raise is always AA, I think only works with good players, the problem is that a lot of players I play against online arent good players. I have seen the third raise be KQs at TGC the other night. I am willing to go broke with KK all in preflop unless I know my opponant well. I think folding KK preflop vs an average player is a -ev play.

I managed to get KK in the hole a few days ago on GC $50 tables I was MP and had 3 limpers to me, I raised to $2.00 and got re-raised to $4.00 by the SB who was a short stacked LAG, BB folded, an EP player w/ $65 stack called his re-raise, I pushed ALL in w/ $75.00 and BOTH called, BOTH showed AA and split my money, what are the odds of that??? after both called I expected to loose to AA but not 2 AAs

I had AA vs AA on the $50 tables a few days ago. We were both thrilled to be all-in until we saw what the other had. We split and lost the rake. Yuck.

Jeff, if you're still wondering where all the AA preflop hands are and why you haven't had enough of them: they're all coming to me. I swear I've had it at least 10-12 times in about the last 4 hours of table time. Craziness.

Kent... first off bite me about the SO many AA hands you're hitting ... And I've got you worse than your AA split... In a 2/4 NL game about a month ago, I went allin KK, got called by KK, and he won with a runner runner runner runner flush... Don't remember much after that, as I just woke up out of my coma last week...

Jav.... it was at GC, where I'll often get some funky allin calls... I think I said before somewhere that, in the couple of hours I played, I got 2 other KK allins, one w/ QQ, the other AQ... I don't think the other player was especially better than me (but he did walk away w/ all my money )...

I would of played the hand similiar to you and just taken the beat and re-upped my stack. If I was up in the session and had 2 buy-ins in front of me I would of smooth called his re-raise and play from there. Much of it is player dependent...if the guy dosent raise many flops you would be more inclined to call regardless of stack size.

good flops

YD