How bad is this fold?

[Jonas Kim]

I was playing 25NL Zone on Bovada today and ran into this hand

V1: BTN $76.70
Hero: SB $70.48
V2: BB $25.40

V1 limps BTN, Hero Raises KhKd to 1.25, V2 calls, V1 calls.

Flop: 8s9d8h Hero leads for 1.87 V2 calls, V1 raises to 7.32. Hero calls. V2 backraises all-in for 24.40 total. V1 calls, leaving 51.30 behind. Hero folds.

In Zone, you have only 15 seconds to act and I was sure at this point I was behind at least 1 of the players, seeing as there isn’t even a flush draw on board, I snap folded. V2 shows TT, V1 shows Qs9h.

Thinking back after the hand, I’m not sure if I would call even if I had more time to think. Both of the players literally have to be spazzing out like this for kings to be good, or should we be calling the flop and seeing turns with a 1:1 spr with v2? Want to hear some thoughts. Thanks

[David Wibel]

Preflop is fine, if you raise all your hands here to 5BB then it’s good but make sure that you don’t have a bet sizing tell.

The folp, SPR about 6.5:1 ( on smallest stack) standard C-bet after two checks only for about 40% pot and get check raised. The ranges for all parties here should be very wide with I think SB actually having the narrowest range. Let’s just look in terms of what hands are you calling with if you fold kings. This means all smaller pocket pairs and all other non-paired hands. This leaves exactly Aces and an 8. Now you do have a decent number of 8s, A8s, J8s, 78s, T8s and the rare 98s with maybe some non-suited combinations. But this leaves an incredibly small range of hands that you call with here which suggests to me this is an overfold situation. The only what to combat this is to vastly narrow your C-bet range or the raise range.

You beat all top-top hands, all straight draws, all pocket pairs we expect ( If one of the villains is super slow playing AA fine whatever). But this isn’t a super intimidating board, this is a paired board, reducing the set and trips hands available, there isn’t a flush possibility so this should be a call. If the board was 7c8c9c and action followed the same then a fold is fine, even if you are somehow ahead you need to dodge any number of straight, flush and 2 pair outs that your equity is in bad shape.

[Jonas Kim]

Thanks for the feedback David.

The 5BB preflop is specifically because I’m super deep with the BTN and yes in this situation, I’d be raising all of my hands to 5BB here.

I think I agree with everything you’ve said assuming that there was just a bet, call and raise.

Tbh I haven’t played many hands that went lead, call, raise, call, shove, call and I think my understanding in this situation was that I was making a slightly exploitative fold against what I perceived to be extremely strong raises (a raise/call line and a call/backraise) line.

In order to help me more, do you think you might be able to help me construct ranges for those two specifically to justify why we need to be calling here still? Thanks in advance!

[Ryan Norton]

Hi Jonas,
I think the sizing pre is a bit to large, I’d be more inclined to make it 2.5 to 3x pre. However, if you’re using this sizing everytime you raise then I guess it could be fine, just as long as you’re being consistent. On the flop is where I think the mistake is made and I would have played it differently. Since you’re out of position I would prefer to check here and see what happens behind you. On this board 898 rainbow you can evaluate where you’re at if you know the action that is going on behind you. If you have a bet and a raise/jam you can let your KK go and move on to the next hand as you’re most likely neve ahead here. Their ranges all include an 8x or even pocket 9s in them so it’s hard to see your KK being in the lead at this point, especially at 25NL.
The way you played thought by leading out, and getting flat called then raised also tells you a story that your KK is not ahead becuase their perceived ranges have all the 8x, 99, JT, 7T type hands. I would feel like that if they had TT+ here you know about it preflop as at these stakes very few players are not going to 3bet pre with hands as good as TT+. However, if they do flat, then their hands also include TT and JJ which you crush. I would be more willing to play this range if we were heads up but since you had a flat and a jam, you are far behind. Also, if you cbet and then flat the raise you’re leaving yourself open to getting jammed on which is what happened and now you’re in a bad spot. If you think your KK is good you may as well jam it in anyway instead of flatting, otherwise, what are you flatting for if you think your hand is winning and what are you setting up to do on the turn? Just some food for thought and good luck at the tables!

Ryan

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