But it is true that the way I play pocket Kings (or Queens or Jacks, or even to some extent Aces) is different from how a lot of people play them. To begin with, with any of these hands I'm quite content to take in a small pot. Someone (Stu Ungar?) once said pocket Aces will either win you a small pot or lose you a big one, and I've played enough to realize that's true. So, given that choice, I'd rather win the small pot.
So with any of these hands, I will raise from any position, or re-raise if it's already been raised. Ideally, I want to be down to a single opponent pre-flop. None of these hands play particularly well with multiple opponents.
On the flop, if an overcard comes (i.e. an Ace when I'm holding Kings, or Ace or King when I have Queens, etc.) then I am pretty much through with the hand. Just about the only hands worth calling a pre-flop raise with contain an Ace, so now I am beat. Fortunately I most likely have only put in a comparatively small amount, so it's not too painful. Frustrating, but not painful.
With Kings or Queens, I will reraise a preflop raiser, trying to get heads-up like I said. If my opponent re-reraises me, I'll just call. That way, if I'm taking my Kings against Aces, I won't lose as much as I would if I continued to make it a shove contest. Then just check and call it down, and hope the Kings hold. I'll almost never raise all-in with Kings, but I will call somebody else's all-in. If they have the Aces at that point, well I guess too bad for the home team.
Here are a couple of hands from a recent poker session to show you what I mean. Both of them occurred at the $2/$5 no-limit table.
In the first hand, I was the big blind. A player in early position limped (oh how I hate early position limpers, such a bad play). Everybody else folded to the small blind, who called. I looked at my hand -- pocket Kings -- and raised to $20, hoping one of my two opponents would fold. The first limper called ... and then the small blind re-raised me, to $100! Usually, I would have just called ... but I really did want the other player out, so I re-re-reraised again, to $300. The early limper folded; then the small blind went all-in, which was a total bet of $500. Well of course I was committed, I had him covered, I called. A river King gave me trips, which I didn't need against his pocket Queens. The $1000 pot was mine.
In the second hand, I was in early position with Ten/Four of clubs and folded, so I was just a member of the audience for what went down. It was folded to the button, who raised to $20. The small blind folded; the big blind re-raised to $50. The button then raised to $160; the big blind went all in (about $400) -- he had the button covered -- and the button called. The big blind showed his Kings and the button showed his Aces. The dealer placed five bricks on the board, and the big blind had successfully donked off almost his entire stack pre-flop.
I don't even like the big blind's first re-raise. At this point, he is already heads-up; I would have just called the button and taken the flop. But after the button re-raised, his all-in shove was a horrible decision. Think about it: Not many hands are worth putting $160 into the pot pre-flop; and fewer of those can be beaten by pocket Kings.
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Here's a shout-out to my co-worker Steve, who came in second in a recent PokerStars tourney for a $7000+ payday. Many more of those Steve and you probably won't be my co-worker for long! Big congrats.
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The Seattle area has a new casino which opened recently, the Snoqualmie Casino. I went and checked it out over the T'giving weekend. I guess I will be charitable and say that since it just opened, they haven't grown to their capacity yet. When I was there, only one table of the 12 in their poker room was playing, and it was a $4/$8 limit table. There was list for $2/$5 spread limit. I played the limit table for a few hours, and the other players there were just ghastly. I've already written how I don't like the lower limit tables, because the rake alone makes it almost impossible to beat. Anyhow, they promise that they will have a larger poker room opening in a few weeks; let's at least hope they have more players too to populate it with.
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