Tuesday, March 17, 2015

What to Do With the Dreaded Pocket Kings

Sometimes I get emails instead of blog comments.  Reader Ed, who has sometimes left comments on the blog, recently emailed me about a couple of hands from a session he had recently played in.  It was a 1/3 game, I believe in his local casino (not Vegas).  You'll see why he thought of me when you get to the punch line.

Going to go over situation I had recently in cash game..  I was playing cash game, flopped trip 10's on a Q-10-3 board.  Ist player raises to $50  2nd player calls $50  I call $50.  Turn  2.  No flush or straight.  Ist player makes it #100. 2nd player folds. I call $100.  River  8.  Ist player all in and covers my last $180.  I tank and say if he has trip Q's so be it.  I call  He turns over Pocket AA.  I win and have  $520.     

Three hands later here comes pocket KK's.   Ist  player makes it $60 to go and I smooth call $60.  Player to my left ( who is a dealer and a maniac) goes all in for last $95.  This is where it gets interesting.  This reopens the betting and 1st player goes all in for $550 and has me covered.  I say to myself do I want to dump all the money I just made?  The answer was no.  I open folded KK's  and the table went nuts.  Of course he had AA and the board blanked all the way.  AA was good and I saved all my profits.  This was the first time I have ever done this but sometimes you get a feel.

Thanks, Ed.  That is certainly one way to play the dreaded pocket Kings. Great read, Ed. Congrats on the nice session.  Usually, I'm not good enough to fold pocket Kings, although you would have thought I would have learned by now.  But there actually was a time when I did fold the dreaded hand pre-flop.  That post can be found here.  I too had a good read, based on a conversation I had with the person who had the bullets.

I liked Ed's story and appreciated him bringing it to my attention.  But something about the telling of the story bothered me.  No, it wasn't the fact that he folded KK preflop.  I should do that every time.  It was his saying that the raise from $60 to $95 (an all-in) reopened the betting.  That didn't seem right to me.    I was sure that in a no limit game, the all-in must be at least as big as the previous raise in order to allow a re-raise.  Sure it was more than half of the original bet, but I thought the "1/2 rule" only applied to limit games, not no limit.

I went on Twitter to reach out to my my followers, many of whom are poker dealer (or near full time grinders).  Most of the responses agreed that if the case I described, the player with the pocket Aces would not have been allowed to re-raise. He could only call the $95.  But a few players said they know places where it would be allowed, that is the rule in their room or some room they play.  Others insisted that they have seen dealers and floor people make that mistake in this situation, and it is just that, a mistake.  In other words, if you ever saw a player allowed to re-raise an all-in that was less than the full amount of the raise (even if it's only $1 less), it was a mistake, not a house rule.  The TDA rules are quite clear on this.  Of course, not all rooms use TDA rules, and even if they do, they might not follow them in a cash game.

I wrote back to Ed to point that out to him.  He came back to me and said that he very well may have gotten the details wrong in the first email.  It might have been that the raise was not to $95 but to $120 or so, making a legitimate raise.  Ok then.  So it may have been a moot point.

But I still feel it was worth talking about, because of the reaction I got on Twitter when I posed the question.  Apparently there is some real confusion out there about this rule, even among poker dealers and poker floor people.  So if it's important to your action, you should probably ask for a clarification  first before you act.

And remember to fold those damn Kings when your opponent has Aces.



14 comments:

  1. Looks like some 1-3 game if people are open raising $60 preflop?? More likely someone raised $15-20 first and someone reraised? My understanding of the general rule is the raise must be double the last raise in most places, or over 50% of the last raise in others to reopen the betting. So in those instances, if there was a raise to $20 first, the all in would have to be for $100 in the first instance and $80 in the second to reopen the betting. My only other comment is both hands were played way too passively for my liking....

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    1. Thanks, I doubled checked with Ed and the guy open raised to $60....but as I said, he may have gotten the all-in amount incorrectly.

      Ed probably did play the Kings hand too passively but in this case he made the right play, even if it was wrong long-term.

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    2. Not that I've ever played in a game like it, but I have heard of NLHE raises being greater than half the bet re-opening betting. There are house rules like that out there - somewhere...

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    3. Most of my dealer pals who weighed in were of the opinion that whenever they rule that way--essentially taking the limit rule and using it for No Limit--it is actually a case of the floor making an error and confusing the too, not actually enforcing the house rule.

      Alaskagal was sure that if you saw the actual rule book that the house uses whenever they make that ruling, you would see that the floorperson got it wrong.

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  2. Rob,

    I know you keep meticulous notes so I'm curious if you've ever reviewed them to find out the reality of your beats with "the dreaded pocket kings" as opposed to your perception of them as your poker curse... Have you actually lost with them more than the maths say you should??

    Mr. Reed

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    1. Ha. I don;'t keep records on specific hands like that. the truth is, I probably have a record with them in line with what the math would indicate. But of course that includes a lot of hands where my preflop raise is not called or my c-bet takes it down without a fight.

      It is just that the times I lose with them are often so horrific that they stand out in my hand. As such, when I win a big pot with them, that is also more memorable than it would ordinarily be.

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  3. Hello Rob, here is a KK story for you. I am UTG and look down at KK, table is full of young guys so I limp in knowing that there is no way it will be limped all around. Sure enough the player in the cutt-off makes it $12 and I'm the only caller. Flop comes down Q high rainbow. I check, he bets $17, I call. Turn is a blank, I decide to stop playing silly games and make it $60 which gets him to fold. See, there are pleasant KK stories out there!

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    1. Nice story. I don;t mind the limp if you are sure someone is going to raise, but I think you should have re-raised after cut off guy made it $12.

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  4. I'm a dealer and a player in my casino will open fold KK every time in my casino. Interesting to say the least. He must have a rough history with them lol

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    1. Wow....thanks for sharing that. I dunno where you deal but I swear that player isn't me!

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  5. I'd be curious if any poker rooms ever test their dealers/floor people, etc.. on any of the rules. I went to dealer school before getting that job at the Riv, and the Riv. didn't. Point being, house rules or mistakes, you'll see a multitude of situations handled in a wide variety of different ways at various poker rooms...

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    1. Good point, Coach. I bet they never do. Maybe if someone questions a ruling enough so that it gets to the manager and he realizes his staff goofed.

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