Recently, there seems to be a rash of discussion questioning whether it is ever correct to fold KK preflop. The answer is OF COURSE IT IS, just not very often. When people ask about folding KK preflop, the argument is often centered around “knowing” that your opponent has AA. I would say that folding KK preflop for fear of your opponent having AA is just not something that is wise to do. There is far too likely a chance that he is holding AK, QQ, JJ or some other hand that people like to push hard preflop. Another reason people use to justify folding KK preflop might be based on the number of people in the pot.

For example, if the UTG player moves all-in for 9BB. The player in seat 4 moves all-in over the top and the cutoff also calls/moves all-in. People now fear playing their KK not only because of the increased chance of AA, but also the concern about playing KK 4-handed. This is where you need to take some pot odds into account. Assume you have KK, the UTG player has AK, the 4th position player has JJ/QQ and the Button is calling with 8-9 suited because he has a huge stack and is getting nearly 3-to1. Your KK is only 43% favorite. But you're getting far beyond the odds, over 3-to-1, needed to take that shot. Give two players an ace (taking away one of the outs to beat you) and your chances improve to better than 50%! So even 4-handed in that situation you probably should call.

The largest chance of finding a correct spot to laydown KK preflop is in a satellite tourney or in a tourney with a very flat payout structure. In these tourneys, there is much more emphasis put on simply surviving over chip accumulation. In a normal tourney, most of the prize pool is divided among the top 3-5 spots. So if 20 people get paid, you still have 15 people to go before you really make any money. This makes it necessary to take far greater risks, because your goal is to win the tournament. With a satellite, all 20 players get the same prize, so your goal is simply to make it to the top 20, not win the tourney. For example, you are playing for a WSOP ME seat in one of the PokerStars $650 qualifiers. There are 9 people left and 6 people get seats. The blinds are 5,000/10,000 and you have $324,000 chips. An early position player moves all-in and a middle position player calls (assume they both have approx. the same chipstack). In this instance, I probably fold KK preflop. It is far more important to have a player eliminated than it is for you to pick up more chips. With $324k, it is likely that you can simply fold your way to a WSOP seat, so why risk being crippled?

Hopefully this has helped illustrate when it might be the right time to fold KK preflop and when you might be forced to call. Once thing this article cannot account for however, is intuition. Sometimes, especially when you have logged a lot of time player a specific player, you just feel like something is off. You don’t know what it is about the hand, but something just “feels” like you are beat. In this case, especially if you have only put in a few chips so far, its ok to fold. But if you do, don’t come to a poker forum and ask “is this fold ok?” because the answer is going to be “no.” The only one who can know whether the fold was correct or not…is you. For you stat guys, I will finish up this article with my estimation of how often you should fold KK preflop: 1%-2%.