A few years ago, I was really deep stacked in a $5/$10 cash game filled with really tough local players. I had about $2300 in chips and woke up to KdKh under the gun. Having acquired a fairly tight image through about 6 hours of play, I made a standard raise to $30.
The action folded to the cutoff, who was incidentally the only player on the table who had me covered. The gentleman in this seat was an older player, maybe in his mid-fifties. He is crafty, but not crazy. The closest player profile I would file him under would be tight aggressive. I had known him for years but we never really tangled before this hand.
So the cutoff did a quick peek at his hole cards and made it $100 to go without hesitation.
The action folded to me and I made it $250.
In retrospect, the more and more I have thought about that raise (and I've evaluated this hand hundreds of times), the more unsure I am about it. I don't usually like chintzy raises like that but my thought process for the raise size was to try and keep him in if he was isolating with something like KQs, AJs, pocket tens, or something similar. I knew he would more than likely see the flop with those combinations. Also, considering his profile and the betting action (remember I am 4 betting from UTG!), I didn't expect for him to play back at me with starting hands like or pocket Jacks or AKo, I just expected a call. I also realized my play, this deep stacked, was basically turning my hand over. And that realization is what made what happened next so intriguing.
Cutoff snap re-raises to $900.
Ugh. Tank time.
I never felt pocket Kings shrivel up in my hand that fast before.
I thought long and hard about what his 5-bet 80 BB range it had to be extremely narrow.
I considered AKs, but quickly dismissed that possibility. This isn't a tournament, it's a deep stacked cash game! Only a maniac or donkey (of which this player was neither) would play Big Slick that strong in a cash game.
Pocket Jacks also only got about 15 seconds of tank time. But I was really sure that he was not capable of making that play with either of those starting hands, so they were out.
That left only three viable holdings to me:
1. Pocket Queens,
2. Pocket Kings, or
3. Pocket Aces.
That's it.
I took a few deep breaths and evaluated the action again. It's for situations like this that I highly recommend wearing what I call "poker armor". What this means for me is very dark, tinted shades, a large hooded shirt and an IPOD with plenty of "cerebral" type music (Classical or Classic Jazz but mostly Classical). This helps me enter my own world of deep thought without worrying about giving off tells or giving my opponents the pleasure of watching me agonize.
Option 1: The Ladies (QQ).
This was by far the least likely holding in my opinion. As I have already mentioned, my image was tight, and I made a chintzy 4 bet from UTG. I'm screaming that I have a monster, something way better than say, pocket Jacks or Tens. So while QQ was a possibility, it still wasn't a very likely one in my opinion. I just didn't think the old man was aggressive enough to 5-bet me here with QQ. So I asked myself, what percentage of the time does he show up with QQ here? My best guess mathematically was 20%.
Option 2: The Cowboys (KK).
This holding would have been way more likely in this scenario if I didn't happen to be holding the other two Kings. So that made it easy to somewhat dismiss KK, only because it is so unlikely that another player will have two copies of the same exact hole cards that you have. But the betting action DID dictate that this rarity was still possible.
So again I asked myself, what percentage of the time does he show up with KK here? My best guess mathematically was 15%.
That leaves Option 3, by far the most logical holding in my opinion: The Rockets (AA).
That 5 bet was screaming back at me: "I know you have a monster and I want to stack you!" I couldn't logically consider just flat calling his re-raise. If I figure he most likely has pocket Aces here, what kind of flop am I looking for? I might as well have pocket twos if I am calling 80 big bets preflop KNOWING I most likely need to hit a set! The fact that I had Pocket Kings was irrelevant; I was either re-raising all in or folding.
So if 20% it's QQ and 15% of the time it's KK, that means I figured that around 65% of the time his hole cards are AA in this spot!
But before I let my Cowboys ride off into the sunset, I did some quick math in my head:
If 20% of the time he has QQ, I am about an 80% favorite to win the hand. What this means mathematically is: 8 out of 10 times I will win $2300 and 2 out of 10 times I will lose 2300. 18400-4600/10 = $1380 (multiplied by the 20% of the time I figured this holding was likely) = +$276 Positive expected value (+EV) in this scenario.
If 15% of the time he has KK, we are dead even mathematically, which means we are almost 100% likely to split. 100% of the time I will win $0 and lose $0, so my EV is $0 (multiplied by 15% likelihood, which still obviously is $0) in this scenario.
If 65% of the time he has AA, I am about a 20% underdog. 80% of the time I will lose $2300 and 20% of the time I will win $2300. -18400+4600/10 = -$1380 (multiplied by 65% likelihood) = -$897 negative expected value.
What does all of this math mean? Well, if my read was correct, my expected value if I pushed all in is -$621. That's just a fancy way of saying that if my read of his starting hand ranges and the likelihood of him having these holdings were accurate; I could expect to average a loss of $621 over the long run if I ignored my read and pushed all in.
In eleven years of playing, this is the only time I have ever confidently mucked Kings preflop. My opponent asked, rather disappointed, if I mucked QQ when he showed his AA face up. I let my poker armor shield me as I smiled to myself and kept completely silent.
The action folded to the cutoff, who was incidentally the only player on the table who had me covered. The gentleman in this seat was an older player, maybe in his mid-fifties. He is crafty, but not crazy. The closest player profile I would file him under would be tight aggressive. I had known him for years but we never really tangled before this hand.
So the cutoff did a quick peek at his hole cards and made it $100 to go without hesitation.
The action folded to me and I made it $250.
In retrospect, the more and more I have thought about that raise (and I've evaluated this hand hundreds of times), the more unsure I am about it. I don't usually like chintzy raises like that but my thought process for the raise size was to try and keep him in if he was isolating with something like KQs, AJs, pocket tens, or something similar. I knew he would more than likely see the flop with those combinations. Also, considering his profile and the betting action (remember I am 4 betting from UTG!), I didn't expect for him to play back at me with starting hands like or pocket Jacks or AKo, I just expected a call. I also realized my play, this deep stacked, was basically turning my hand over. And that realization is what made what happened next so intriguing.
Cutoff snap re-raises to $900.
Ugh. Tank time.
I never felt pocket Kings shrivel up in my hand that fast before.
I thought long and hard about what his 5-bet 80 BB range it had to be extremely narrow.
I considered AKs, but quickly dismissed that possibility. This isn't a tournament, it's a deep stacked cash game! Only a maniac or donkey (of which this player was neither) would play Big Slick that strong in a cash game.
Pocket Jacks also only got about 15 seconds of tank time. But I was really sure that he was not capable of making that play with either of those starting hands, so they were out.
That left only three viable holdings to me:
1. Pocket Queens,
2. Pocket Kings, or
3. Pocket Aces.
That's it.
I took a few deep breaths and evaluated the action again. It's for situations like this that I highly recommend wearing what I call "poker armor". What this means for me is very dark, tinted shades, a large hooded shirt and an IPOD with plenty of "cerebral" type music (Classical or Classic Jazz but mostly Classical). This helps me enter my own world of deep thought without worrying about giving off tells or giving my opponents the pleasure of watching me agonize.
Option 1: The Ladies (QQ).
This was by far the least likely holding in my opinion. As I have already mentioned, my image was tight, and I made a chintzy 4 bet from UTG. I'm screaming that I have a monster, something way better than say, pocket Jacks or Tens. So while QQ was a possibility, it still wasn't a very likely one in my opinion. I just didn't think the old man was aggressive enough to 5-bet me here with QQ. So I asked myself, what percentage of the time does he show up with QQ here? My best guess mathematically was 20%.
Option 2: The Cowboys (KK).
This holding would have been way more likely in this scenario if I didn't happen to be holding the other two Kings. So that made it easy to somewhat dismiss KK, only because it is so unlikely that another player will have two copies of the same exact hole cards that you have. But the betting action DID dictate that this rarity was still possible.
So again I asked myself, what percentage of the time does he show up with KK here? My best guess mathematically was 15%.
That leaves Option 3, by far the most logical holding in my opinion: The Rockets (AA).
That 5 bet was screaming back at me: "I know you have a monster and I want to stack you!" I couldn't logically consider just flat calling his re-raise. If I figure he most likely has pocket Aces here, what kind of flop am I looking for? I might as well have pocket twos if I am calling 80 big bets preflop KNOWING I most likely need to hit a set! The fact that I had Pocket Kings was irrelevant; I was either re-raising all in or folding.
So if 20% it's QQ and 15% of the time it's KK, that means I figured that around 65% of the time his hole cards are AA in this spot!
But before I let my Cowboys ride off into the sunset, I did some quick math in my head:
If 20% of the time he has QQ, I am about an 80% favorite to win the hand. What this means mathematically is: 8 out of 10 times I will win $2300 and 2 out of 10 times I will lose 2300. 18400-4600/10 = $1380 (multiplied by the 20% of the time I figured this holding was likely) = +$276 Positive expected value (+EV) in this scenario.
If 15% of the time he has KK, we are dead even mathematically, which means we are almost 100% likely to split. 100% of the time I will win $0 and lose $0, so my EV is $0 (multiplied by 15% likelihood, which still obviously is $0) in this scenario.
If 65% of the time he has AA, I am about a 20% underdog. 80% of the time I will lose $2300 and 20% of the time I will win $2300. -18400+4600/10 = -$1380 (multiplied by 65% likelihood) = -$897 negative expected value.
What does all of this math mean? Well, if my read was correct, my expected value if I pushed all in is -$621. That's just a fancy way of saying that if my read of his starting hand ranges and the likelihood of him having these holdings were accurate; I could expect to average a loss of $621 over the long run if I ignored my read and pushed all in.
In eleven years of playing, this is the only time I have ever confidently mucked Kings preflop. My opponent asked, rather disappointed, if I mucked QQ when he showed his AA face up. I let my poker armor shield me as I smiled to myself and kept completely silent.
