Can you ever get away from KK vs AA?

I guess you can. I had a very short life in a tournament last night, and yet I KNEW that opponent had AA to my KK. Obviously I hoped he had AK, but no such luck. After all I held blockers to his AK, but none to AA.

I guess I COULD have gotten away from it, except that I had already decided that I would play aggressively for a big stack early on, and did not mind going to bed early and reading a book.

With a Q and a J on the flop, I was losing to AA, QQ, and JJ, so my shove was futile. On the other hand, if you were the player with AA, would you call my shove knowing that QQ and JJ, which were both plausible hands, were beating you?

I guess that in small stack poker, you mostly just have to go for it and take your licks when it doesn’t work out. Sometimes I am a little bit cautious, because there are a limited number of MTTs on RP at an appropriate entry level, and you can’t always go out of a MTT and straight into another good game.

Plus in the other tournament I played yesterday I was knocked out in the second hour when my JJ was rivered by 88 against an larger sized stack–but one that I could badly hurt–when a different river would have put me in a potentially winning position. I could have gone out an hour earlier in the same way and saved myself some time!

I can’t say I like my opponents calls either preflop or on the flop here, but, hey, he had a bigger stack than me and he won the hand, so what can I say?

. I don’t know what he thought he was beating on the flop, though. Not beating AK, AK, A anything, not beating any pocket pair except 7s downwards. I guess he just reckoned that if he lost the hand, he still had a playable stack size. Or maybe he just thought he was calling a complete bluff. I would change my name, except that I am already on my second name and not allowed to change again. Of course I was very happy if he thought I was bluffing. Until the river.

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Happends to us all! Lose or win,the fun must be first!!! Why change name,you are a great player!!

Nothing to do with your post specifically, but you said something that I think could well be my (and probably just about anyone’s) motto here on Replay - and I love it - full credit to you and if you make t-shirts, I’ll buy one - so here it is (paraphrased just a little):

“I was very happy. Until the river.”

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I think stack depth is the primary consideration, with the player type of the opponent being a secondary factor.

More than 200bb effective you can. Between 100bb and 200bb it depends on the circumstances but sometimes. <=100bb impossible.

In #748877113 after the flop I would have found a fold facing tenball’s bet. On that flop with KK you’re bluff catching and hoping he 4 bet you preflop with 1010 or AQ.

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I like that. Did I mention that I have already copyrighted that phrase and Happy-Until-The-River.com

Yes, you are right. I had kind of decided not to fold preflop unless there was an A on the flop, which was silly. I knew from the 4 bet that AA was his most likely hand. Anyway, I got to bed early and had a good sleep.

I have decided to announce my retirement from RP as I wish to spend more time with my family and my dogs and improve my mental health. This has nothing to do with the ongoing problem of RP being fixed in favor of my opponents!

You will be missed. Stay safe and healthy. Enjoy retirement.

Hell, I think there could even be a song.

(Sung to the tune of The Stones “Sweet Virginia”):

I was… very happy… until the river
I had two Queens… to the other guy’s… seven two
He sucked out sevens… on the turn… and then the river, uh-huh
He busted me, he busted them, and you

So come on, come on down, down to the river
Come on, come on down, y’know it waits for you
Come on, come on down, you know it’s coming, uh-huh
It’s gonna scrape those chips right out from under you

Very good! I think we have a number #1 hit here.

I think the range of the opponent for me is a larger consideration than effective stacks, unless we are quite shallow (under 20bb). In general, I’m very happy to get all my chips in pre flop with KK, but if I raise, and get 3 bet from someone I’ve played a lot of hands with that I’ve never seen 3 bet before, I’m not going to be at all inclined to 4 bet in that spot, and will play pretty carefully post.

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Best wishes. Good luck.

The key thing is how well you know your opponent, if hes tight you can fold kings to his 4bet or just call his EP raise, if hes aggro, you can 5bet jam on him. For a random player, if you do make a 3betting range against and EP open (which is optional, if your opponent has positional awareness he should be opening tightly and you have position on him). This is especially true if you are stuck in a sticky spot if he 4bets, like you are right now. The pot sized bet is just a fold. If you look at the odds 6 combos of aces 6 combos of queens and jacks and approximately 6 combos or less of random bluffs such as AK. Since your stack is more than the pot size this does not give you the correct odds to call. Analysis can show that you might need to play this differently but in real time I would never fold this lol.