When you get a pair of kings, depending on the behaviour of your opponents, your position and how many players you are most likely to see the flop against, you must always put in a large raise. The reason why you want to put in a large raise, is because pocket kings are a dangerous hand to play against many players, ideally it is optimum to try and only face one player. When you raise hard with your kings the only likely callers are going to be good players with pockets 9′s up or AJ up, bad callers will be calling with hands like A5 and so on, now if an ace hits the flop fold, don’t even think about it fold. There is a 18% chance the flop will bare an ace and a 12% chance it will bare a king, if there is an ace on the flop, all you favourable math has gone out the window. Hit a king on the flop then you want to try and slow play your opponents and you don’t have to be too concerned about the ace any longer.

After the flop has hit and there is no ace or king go all in, your math just got more favourable, after the flop there is a 12 percent chance an ace will turn up on either the turn card or the river card, translating to 88 percent chance you will win a show down. Provided some on did not catch two pair up the odds of this from flop to river is 5% per player, so if there is no ace on the flop and you go all in one player calls, you have 83% chance of winning if two players call it drops to78% but you triple your money, instead of doubling it against a single player. That being said in cash games to triple your winnings is good, were as in sit and go tournaments survival is the way to go. Basically in a sit and go if there is a 50% chance of winning 3 times my chips I would rather fold, because if I lose I am out of the game penny less, if I win it does not at all guarantee my place in a paid position, however it does increase my chances slightly. In a cash game if there was a 50% chance of winning 3 times my chips I would go for it, because that is a scenario were I’d be risking $100 for $300 with a 50% win to lose probability. So to recap when you wake up with a pair of kings, raise as much as you feel is necessary to get only one caller and not too much to induce everybody to fold, if no ace hits the flop go all in, in a cash game rather just raise. Beware of two cards on the flop if the flop reads J 77 or there is a possibility someone might have a 7, meaning his triple 7 blows your two kings out of the water, the odds are not that improbable. When you do see two cards of the same vale like the example above, treat the game like a value bluff rather than play your kings, bet half the pot to induce fold equity if someone does have trips they are going nowhere in which circumstances you may need to check fold to the river.

Playing Kings to perfection is just as much about not losing money with kings, as it is about gaining money with kings. I bet that there have been few amateurs in history ever to have folded a pair of kings if any. A top poker pro will be folding kings at least 20% of the time if he feels it is the optimum move, but don’t get me wrong kings are crushing and to be used with extreme aggression, it’s just if you can pick up a bad situation and side step it with kings, chances are you will still see the show down between other players and realise what a smart move you made. When facing overly aggressive players or all in maniacs try and go all in with just two of them if you are facing multiple all INS just fold, if it’s a sit and go. It’s ok to take two players all in with kings provided they are very reckless and probably holding a pair of 3′s or J 10. Tight players you want to limp with kk watch out for the ace and try and slow play if they catch anything and a mixed table you need to play it by ear with mix of the above tactics.