Poker News

Dr. Scott Aigner

Dan Harrington states that it is probably wrong to fold kings in a normal tournament situation. There are limited opportunities and therefore you cannot try to out guess that one in 24 chance that you are against a pair of aces. He even stated that most of the pros are not savvy enough to fold kings. Those few times you find yourself against aces you still have a 1 in 5 chance of winning as well. Hoyt Corken’s famous quote is “I don’t care if he has aces, I have kings”! I agree with Mr. Harrington that folding kings can be almost impossible to do in a tournament setting. This opinion is completely opposite to what Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier have advocated in their tournament books. “Aces are the only hand one should get busted with on the very first hand of a tournament”.

I am not too sure though if this holds true once you have committed a major portion of your chips that happens quite frequently in some of the smaller tournaments where the stack sizes are relatively small in comparison to the starting blinds. It also is difficult in the later stages when the stack to blind ratio is also small in comparison. In addition, I have seen too many reraises all in with under pairs and by a player who thinks you are weak and trying to steal the pot. Folding kings becomes almost impossible preflop in most of these tournament situations that I have been involved in. I once again agree with Mr. Harrington in regards to the play of kings.

The probability that you will be up against aces is too small to fold in a majority of situations. I do feel that I could fold kings in the very first hand of a 10k tournament if I was faced with an all in reraise. This is a unique situation due to the structure and the size of the stacks vs. the blinds. One can easily gain the chips back in this setting. Folding kings can be easier in this situation especially for the better player. Although it is a hard play to fold kings, I have done so several times. There have been several famous situations where a player correctly made this lay down as well.

Occasionally you just have that gut feeling that you are up against the aces. I had this happen in December in the 3k no limit tournament. After I reraised an early position player, he moved in on me. After a considerable amount of time, I decided to call. Of course, he showed me his aces and my 19% equity in the pot evaporated by the river. My instincts screamed at me to lay them down not once, but at least 3 times in those few minutes that I thought about the opponent’s possible holding. My ultimate reason for calling was that this player was capable of reraising all in on a number of hands with his loose aggressive style. I just had to see if he really had those aces! Gee, how bad of a player am I?

No matter what the outcome is, I doubt that anyone would ever be too critical of your play in this situation. Sometimes you just have to commit to your hand. At least you can take solace in the fact that you will see those dreaded aces staring back at you about once every 24 times.

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