Playing K-K - Opening Hands Part 2

One thing to remember while deciding whether to play a pre-flop hand in Texas Hold’em is that given a deck of 52 cards, there are 3 (K, Q, J) x 4 suits = 12 face cards. Add in the 4 As and 4 Tens, and you have 20 “favorable” cards in a deck of 52. If you want to count 9s, then you have 24 favorable cards, which is nearly half the deck.

If you were the only player in the game, then your odds of getting, say, K-K pre-flop are (4/52) x (3/51) = 0.45%. Less than 1%: pretty tiny odds. Of course, you cannot be the only player, so this is absurd. But, if you now throw in more players, your odds of getting K-K are even lower. Keep in mind that I’m NOT talking about the probability of getting ANY pair pre-flop. That is about 1 in 2 1/3 =~ 0.4285 =~ 42.85 %. That is, you have pretty good odds of getting SOME pair pre-flop, but small odds on getting a specific pair.

So, if you have a K-K in the pocket, you probably want to bet hard or lose the advantage. The odds of getting A-A or K-K preflop is the same. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is about K-K in the preflop that has me more likely to play them than A-A, but I have more faith in the royalty. I’ll try to explain though. When I actually find time to play Texas Hold’em, I’m a pretty tight player.

Pocket Kings give me a lot of options, post-flop:

(1) K-K, which wins if no one has a better hand
(2) Trips (K-K-K), which is rare, but can happen.
(3) K-high straight
(4) A-high straight

A-A could only give you A-A, trips, A-high straight, but it beats a K-K if someone has it. And if they do have it, they’re probably going to betting hard, as you should be. Still, from a purely psychological point of view, especially to a relative newbie to Texas Hold’em like myself, I feel more comfortable playing K-K than A-A. And maybe this is the reason why young Phil Ivey finds pocket Aces to be his bane, at least on televised tourneys. (I’ve yet to see how veteran Doyle Brunson plays A-A.)

Of course, you could calculate the probability that another player has pocket Aces over your K-K, or that they’ll get A-A after the flop, turn or river. But if you bet high from the start, you gain an advantage - especially if you’ve been playing tight to begin with. You might bluff some players into thinking that you’ve got A-A, A-K. And unless someone else has that, odds are good that you can make those pocket Kings work for you. This works for both Limit and No Limit Texas Hold’em - except in low-stakes limits, where “jackals” might play any bad hand because there’s little to lose. But it’s easier to get away with online because you don’t have to worry about maintaining a poker face.

Links: Poker rules.

Tags: thepokerblog, the poker blog, pocket kings, texas hold’em, texas holdem, poker, cardplaying, card games

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