K♦K♣ vs a Preflop Reraise, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a live $1-2 game an Early Position player (UTG+1) limps preflop and you raise to $20 with K♦K♣ from UTG+2. The Hijack, Cutoff, Button, and Small Blind all call. The UTG+1 player reraises all-in for $50. Action is back on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: After the player in the UTG+1 seat limps into the pot, we elected to raise with our KK. Given the preflop looseness of the players at this table, we decided to raise to $20 or 10 big blinds. Despite this raise size, four players behind us called, then the initial limper moved all-in for $50 or 25 big blinds.
Our hand, KK, is well ahead of any reasonable range of hands the UTG+1 player could hold, especially given their relatively shallow stack size. So we should not fold to this all-in bet.
However, if we call this bet, we can anticipate multiple additional calls from the opponents behind us. The UTG+1 player’s all-in raise size is not sufficient to thin the field of players.
Continued below...
One of the more important concepts to understand in No-Limit Hold’em is how hands change value from preflop to the flop given a certain number of opponents. Our hand, KK, is very likely to be the winning hand after the flop against 1 or 2 opponents. As additional opponents see the flop, the value of our hand drops dramatically.
Therefore, we must take action to limit the field of players that see the flop to maintain the value of our hand. A reraise of three times the previous total bet ($150) should accomplish this goal. Calling will put us in many marginal postflop situations.
Reraising to thin the field is the best play.
How would you play it?
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