Is all-in calling 2 all-ins with KK a bad move pre-flop?

Question

Context:

NLHE live tournament, freeroll, 2K GTD, table with 8, blinds 2000/4000 (started with 50/100, 15 minutes). I have about 14BBs. Some stacks have more, some have less.

The action:

• UTG folds
• UTG+1 shoves all-in (stack larger than mine)
• MP1 folds
• MP2 go all-in with more than UTG+1 stack (stack way larger than mine)
• Hero (HJ): I face a decision whether to play my KK or not

Info on players:

• UTG+1 has been on the table for about 10 hands, no big plays so far but played some weak hands
• MP2 has been on the table with me for about 4h, capable of wisely playing a very wide range
• Hero has been playing TAG throught the session.

My thoughts:

• It was very unlikely that UTG+1 would shove with AA, instead, would raise for value.
• MP1 has gone all-in with mid connectors/suited-connectors before
• I, with KK have most likely the best hand, although pocket pairs doesn't play very well on multiway pots.

Following action:

• I make my mind that shoving is a good play here
• Button shoves

Showdown:

• Button has AA
• UTG+1 has JTo
• MP2 has ATo
• Hero has KK

Result:

At the river, UTG+1 made a straight and took the main pot, knocking out MP2 and Hero. Button took the side pot with a set of Aces.

Regardless of the result, I'm still wondering if my play was good or not here.

Question:

Would you have done anything different in this situation?

Answer 1

Short answer, no, I wouldn't have done anything differently.

You have 14BBs and find KK with two players already committed to pay off your entire stack if you win the hand. Sure, you might rather have just one player shoving in front of you to increase your chances of winning the hand (or more specifically reduce the chances that you are eliminated from the tournament in this hand)*, but with 2 players already all-in, you have a chance to get all your money in with KK and potentially more than treble up. Therefore, I'm shoving here every day of the week, just like you did.

You're obviously unfortunate to have someone behind you wake up with AA, but you can't factor the chances of that into your decision in my opinion - it's super unlikely.

*If we knew how much bigger the two jamming stacks in front of you were, we could probably infer a rough range for those players and calculate whether your equity is higher when they both shove or when just one of them shoves, but that's largely irrelevant to your actual question. As it stands, even with the exact hands they turned out to have (and AA being behind you etc), your equity in the hand is only -4BBs, so it wasn't even the most horrific spot you can imagine (because when you spike a K or whatever and win, you get a huge pot of 57.5BBs). If the BTN doesn't wake up with AA and just folds, your equity in the hand is more than +20BB with the exact hands the other two players had.

Answer 2

Since your stack was covered and it was tournament play and all actions were ahead of you, I personally would have folded and shown if possible. I've made MANY folds where others would have borrowed against their kids to bet more. Here's why; "there's always another hand"(Doyle Brunson) And if you have chips you can play it(me). The first time I cemented this rule I came from ONE $5 chip at the first break of a tournament to win the tournament outright because I didn;t just toss that lone chip away, I waited for the right cards or the blind to gobble me up and I got the odds in my favor. 6 hours later I was $3k richer all because I didn;t quit or ignore Doyle's advice. When all else fails and you have no instinct on what to do, revert to the odds, especially if the others are already committed to the action they made. I would have assumed the previous actors had tepid pocket pairs and wanted to scare other's off,...and then looking at thier stacks would have rethought my assumption and assumed I was beaten and avoiding a trap. Save your chips and wait for the right shot unless you are cornered.

Answer 3

Simple question. Simple answer. You should never fold kings here. I have no info on payouts and stacksizes of the other players, but I ran this spot on ICMizer calculating your 'chip ev'. In this spot you should push TT+ and AK. KK is expected to net you 11BB or 44k chips. Which is 80% of your stack. Easiest shove ever. This spot is not even close. Folding is a big big mistake.

Note: my numbers are only roughly accurate, but should give a pretty good idea of the expected value shoving this hand.

Answer 4

Only reason to fold would be if there were massive ICM affects and there were other people near busting. An extreme example: 7th-1st place got $280 each and 8th place received $1. If there were other people with 10bb stacks you could possibly fold. But generally this is an extremely easy call. Next time include the stack sizes and payout structure.