KK on small blind vs Calling Station

Question

I play micro cash games, NL2, NL4, NL6. There are a lot of recreative players and calling stations, so, most of the time value bet is a must.

I don't have the numbers now but the guy was playing almost 50%.

6max NL4

Preflop

• Villain UTG+1 raises to 12c.
• everybody folds to me on SB with KK
• I reraise to 40c
• he calls

Pot (84c, 2 players)

Flop

• J:hearts: 9:diamonds: 6:clubs:
• I bet 63c
• he calls

Pot ($2.10, 2 players)

Turn

• 3:hearts:
• I shove $2.97
• he calls showing JTo

River

• J:clubs:
• I loose a huge pot.

OK, I know that I overplayed my pocket pair but how would you play this hand knowing that the villain is an incredible calling station who will put his entire stack even on the 2nd pair?

Answer 1

how would you play this hand knowing that the villain is an incredible calling station who will put his entire stack even on the 2nd pair?

You did put all your stack when you were way ahead and he called: that is perfect! I'm not saying that's how you should always play KK like that: but versus an opponent which you know cannot fold, the goal is to go all-in to take your opponent to value town.

When he calls you all-in, he has 5 outs. What more do you want?

You'll have to learn to deal with the variance: when you are all-in being, say, a 90% favorite (it's just an example), there are deals where you'll still lose the deal.

You should not focus on your opponent having hit his 5-outter: focus instead on the fact that you did put all your money while being a huge favorite and that your opponent did follow, which is very good.

Answer 2

You played it fine on the turn if you know he's not going to fold. Looking just at the results, you played it awesome. Got the money in as a huge favorite... but yeah, I think you overplayed your hand because you are going to lose a lot of value when the guy folds drawing thin when he would call a smaller bet.

One thing I would suggest is to make sure that you aren't varying your flop and turn bets based on the strength of your hand. You'll get away with that in micro-limit games where your opponents are paying attention, but in bigger games against tougher villains, they'll decipher youu style if you routinely bet 3/4 pot with an overpair on a Jack-high flop and less (2/3, 1/2) with top-pair or less.

As far as overplaying... in a normal situation in a bigger game, I probably would have bet less on the turn because you really don't want to lose the draws. If someone is sitting with a 4-outter like KQ or 8-outter like QTo, you can get them to call a bet when they aren't getting the right odds... especially if they are counting on additional outs which aren't there (like with KQ, thinking they have 10 outs instead of 4). But only the big losers are going to call a shove that is 1.5x the pot with a draw. Plenty of those in microlimits... but you're developing bad habits that will follow you as you move up.

Consider if your villain was holding QTo. If he folds after your big shove, and you win the $1 profit... are you happy? You shouldn't be. You should be feeling upset about the lost value in getting him to call that turn bet.

Answer 3

You overplayed your hand not because you went all in ( you should have done that agains a random oponent too). The only thing on my mind in this hand after he calls preflop and we see such a good flop would be how to get all the money in the middle.(Since he called preflop he doesnt have any 2 pair or AA in his range so we are behind only vs sets wich is very rare)

So I would do as follows: The flop is kinda dry so very few hands that called us preflop will call. For this reason I would bet less than you did arround 60% of the pot(but here if you are sure that he is a calling statin betting more is good).

On the turn when we see the 3h(a very good card for us) I would look at the remaining stacks and bet the amount that will let me push on the river.(arround 40% of the effective remaining stack)

On the river the jack is not that good even though it lets us beat lower 2 pair. I personally would shove anyway but if you have some reads you can check call too probably(draws still missed so I dont think you should fold here).

That said if you know that he will call shove on the turn with any jack( he must be a calling station) you played the hand well yourself and definitely shoould not be discouraged by the outcome.

Answer 4

This is a very typical situation in microstakes where many players don't calculate their odds correctly or don't care and will go all the way to the river so the game becomes a Russian roulette.

The flop was played correctly if you were against a good player. You raised the right amount to make calling with a straight draw unprofitable. Against a bad player I would have raised more to 1). protect your hand, 2). define his hand. If he still calls you, you'd know he could very well have AA, JJ, 99, 66 or 78.

The turn was very unlikely to help him so you could have played similarly with the new pot odds. Worst thing would have been checking and giving him a free card. Going all-in wasn't the best course of action with your hand though.

At this point forget the river card. To know if you played correctly you have to think in terms of probability. This time there was a J and you lost, but you foe was calling you without proper odds and over the long term you will have had a positive expectation. That's all that counts.

In general against a "calling station", don't bluff, play tight and aggresive because he's likely to call any amount but be willing to fold as soon as the board don't look good. Against these players you have higher positive expectation but larger variance.