Folding K-K

I was struck by the juxtaposition and similarity of two things I've read within the last 24 hours from completely different sources.

First was this from Doyle Brunson's blog, October 22, 2008:

The Bellagio tournament is the greatest! There is no dinner break and
you can be home in bed by 10:00 pm if you choose. It is really good if you
are a little long in the tooth. I had a decent 1st day and am sitting with
$95,000 in chips. I could have had 50,000 more but I threw away 2 kings
preflop. I was convinced the other player had two aces and couldn’t
believe when he showed two jacks after I passed. That is the fifth time I
have passed two kings preflop in tournaments. I think this was the first
time I’ve been wrong. Oh well, who knows, he might have caught a jack and
really crippled me.

Then I was reading Matt Lessinger's column in the November 5, 2008, issue of Card Player magazine. He writes:

The point I am making is that going all in preflop with K-K against A-A is
clearly an acceptable way to lose a tournament. There are some rare instances
when you can get away from K-K preflop, perhaps very early in a major
tournament, but not often. For what it's worth, I've folded K-K preflop three
times in 12 years, and each time I was correct, but that demonstrates how rare
you can expect to do it. If you start looking for too many situations to fold K-K
preflop, not only will you end up folding it as the best hand too often, but you
will be adopting a mindset that virtually guarantees terrible tournament
results.

One of the best K-K laydown stories comes from Phil Gordon. In his Little Green Book, he describes in great detail the considerations that led him to fold K-K at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event. It's such a good story that I scanned it in above. (It's too long to type, and if it's within the "fair use" copyright exception to type it in--as I believe it is--it should also be OK to scan it in.) Go read.

And here's one more Main Event K-K laydown story, this one from 1992, as told in All In: The (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker, by Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback, p. 170:

As was becoming increasingly common, the most exciting poker of the entire
tournament was played when there were seven players left, all desperately hoping
to make it to the final televised table, which only had room for six. Hamid
Dastmalchi, a longtime professional who moved from his native Iran to San Diego
when he was seventeen, was the chip leader. Dealt pocket kings, he raised before
the flop, only to be reraised by Mike Alsaadi, a professional from Las Vegas,
who pushed all of his chips into the middle.

Hamid stared across the table at his opponent. Most players, especially
those blessed with the chip lead, would call such a bet without thinking twice.
Pocket kings, after all, are the second most powerful hand in Texas hold'em.
Hamid, however, thought back to a comment Mike had made earlier about how badly he wanted to make it to final day. And Mike wasn't just reraising, he was
reraising the chip leader, who was more than likely to call his bet.

"What do you think I've got?" Mike asked him.

"I know you've got two aces," Hamid replied as he threw his two kings into
the muck.

It was an incredible laydown, one that only the top professionals are
capable of making. Confirming the brilliance of the move, Mike showed his two
aces to the crowd.

How many times have I folded K-K before the flop? Zero. How many times should I have done so? Two. That's because in both situations I had enough information to reach the right conclusion from (1) the pattern of raising and reraising, (2) the demeanor of my opponent, (3) the knowledge that he or she had been playing tight and solid, (4) the knowledge that these opponents both knew the same about me, and therefore wouldn't be making a move on me after I was showing such strength.

In one case, at the Orleans, I lost about $200. The one that really sticks in my craw, though, was at the Golden Nugget. I was sitting on about $600 at the time, and was literally about to stand up and go get a couple of chip racks to cash out my bounty when I saw the kings, and the only player at the table who had me covered was the one who had the aces. I don't remember for sure how the raising went, but he was the one that moved all-in first, a big overbet to the $100 or so that had been my previous raise. I had such confidence that he would not do that with anything except aces that I could and should have written off the $100 and saved myself $500. But I didn't, and when I lost all of that in one fell swoop--the most I've ever lost in a single hand--it was as close as I've ever come to throwing up on a poker table.

In both of those cases, I can clearly remember thinking that there is no way that this particular person would be doing this with any hand except exactly A-A. And my rationale for calling in both cases went no deeper than "I can't fold K-K preflop."

(Note that these were both cash games. I play very few tournaments, and can't remember any tournament situation where folding K-K before the flop would have been reasonable.)

To be clear, there have been plenty of times when I've had kings and knew that I might be up against aces, but the situations were such that calling or pushing (depending on whose turn it was) was still reasonable. That's because of one of us having a relatively short stack, or facing a pretty loose/aggressive opponent who would push lesser hands, or whatever. In those cases, although I haven't kept careful track, my impression is that I'm about 50/50 in the long run--roughly half the time seeing the aces, but the other half seeing queens or A-K or occasionally even jacks. One time it was the other two kings. Those situations don't bother me, because calling or shoving was still the right move under the specific circumstances. They didn't feature the compelling, resounding, tidal wave of you're-in-trouble information that I had with the two instances in which I believe I could and should have folded.

But I've learned from those mistakes, I think. I've thought about them a lot, naturally, and tried to sear into my memory the overwhelming sense I had of confidence that I was behind. My hope is that the next time I get that same sickening realization that A-A is the only hand this particular opponent could have in this situation, I'll have the fortitude to act on that conviction and push my lovely but second-best cards back to the dealer.

Whether I succeed or fail at doing that difficult thing the next time the occasion arises, I shall dutifully report it here.