Folding Kings?

In Texas Hold’em poker, being dealt kings (KK) preflop is an excellent occurrence. Unfortunately, being dealt pocket kings happens every only once in every 220 hands or so. This means that when you do get a powerful hand like KK, you need to make the most of it.

The simple answer is that if you have 100 Big Blinds or less, you probably shouldn’t fold kings preflop. On a 10 handed table, there is only about a 1 in 22 chance that one of your opponents with have Aces when you have Kings. The other 21 times, your KK will be the best hand. Yes, if you DO fold kings preflop and your opponent shows you aces, you will look like a genius. But most of the time, if you are willing to fold Kings preflop, you are giving up a lot of money, and might be folding to AK, QQ, JJ, or even a bluff.

If you have much more than 100 Big Blinds though, getting all in preflop might not be the best plan. If you are 300 Big Blinds deep for example, then players will probably ONLY go all in with you if they have precisely AA, so you wont get paid off as often by weaker hands. In this situation, playing a little big more passively and just calling a re-raise might be a better idea. Super deep stack play changes the values of hands considerably, because the focus is now no longer on winning preflop, it’s about seeing the flop and trying to take someone entire stack.

If you have less than 100BBs though, go ahead and get it in. Fortune favours the bold!