by Aisthesis » Sat Jul 23, 2005 7:05 am
A few thoughts: First, KJs doesn't surprize me in the least. I see it all the time. And, to my amazement, the other night, a guy who I'm SURE would have played KJs to a raise, proudly showed his 22 laydown vs. a raised QQ.
It's absolutely shocking to see that people don't realize that sets are the way to crack the big pairs. I think it's the vast majority. Instead, they think, "Hey, I can hit my K or J and have a hand, so let's see the flop!"
Anyone have a more exact name for such players other than just "fish"? I'm inclined to call the big card lovers for lack of anything better, and I think it's a very important read to have--if they lay down their little pairs to the raise, then you really don't have much to worry about here!
As to the hand: If you're going to re-raise KK here (and I'm becoming increasingly skeptical about this play), the flat call to my mind indicated QQ or JJ (raising KJs seems fairly common, although actually calling a big re-raise with it seems insane--on the other hand, I saw a guy the other day re-raise KTs to $850 PF... so, to each his own, I suppose). JJ is obviously dangerous, but QQ also has no reason to slow down. Hence, I think you definitely do need to raise the flop. When he moves in, I'm going to have trouble knowing just what to do here.
Your re-raise cost your opponent $36. So, if he had any credibility, I'd hate to lose more than something like $250 on my big pair (quite aside from the AA danger). With a $54 bet into a roughly $110 pot, you would need to raise to about $200 on the flop, leaving you with a pot of around $500 (in case of a call) and right at $240 in your stack, if I'm getting all the arithmetic right. Well, in my book, that means a re-raise is already all-in (you can't bet the turn if you raise adequately). You could make a slightly less committed raise to maybe $150, being a little more wishy-washy on the flop in order to have some stack-depth left.
Without a read (and the fact that this guy played KJs this way give me a definite read, although the AA hand you noticed earlier doesn't give any indication of this sort), I absolutely hate KK here.
That's the reason I probably just flat call the raise, then, on that flop, you have the stack-depth to easily make a big flop raise. I will admit that I probably end up laying the best hand down either way, simply because I can't hande the following with KK:
He makes it $18, and I flat call. Maybe we get two more players for a pot of $72. He bets out something like $40, and I make it $200. He moves in. I don't think I can really call that without knowing he's an idiot.