Pocket Kings: The second best starting hand in hold’em is also one of the easiest hands to lose all your money with. Not quite aces but better than the rest, this hand takes careful planning to play right, and being able to put your opponents on hands post-flop is absolutely crucial. Kings can be one of the toughest hands to lay down and most pros can only recall one or two times that they have tossed them away preflop.

    All that paint – it makes your pupils dilate and your heart beat faster just thinking about them. But yet, you’re only about a 2-1 favourite over big slick, and they don’t call cowboys “ace magnets” for nothing. If an ace hits the board, you’d better hope you really know your opponent, or you are heading for disaster.

    If you can get all your chips in preflop, you’re a huge favorite against any hand without an ace, and you’re only an underdog to someone with pocket aces (and it’s 220-1 against someone having those).

    Play kings strong, play them with confidence, but also be  prepared to get rid of them if someone is telling you a story about his hand that includes a couple of aces.

Mel Judah

It has become my nightmare hand;  I have gone out  on it in the last three years at the WSOP against A-A. There are different ways to play K-K, especially on the button, preflop. Early in the tourney I would put in a raise about two and a half times the big blind and if I get raised, I just call and what comes on the flop and who the player is determines whether I continue playing the hand or fold if I don’t improve my hand. Against a player who is considered weak I will play it all the way. Later on in the tournament I would play it more aggressive, especially if I am an average to short stack, in any position. Only once I passed kings early in a tourney when my opponent bet on the flop with an 8-high flop because I put him on A-A and I was right. Most of the betting was before the flop. I knew he had A-A but then implied odds is what I was playing for just to hit the king to get all his chips. 

Yosh Nakano

I’m not the right person to talk about K-K. Out of five major tournaments this year, in four of them I went out with K-K late. Twice including the WSOP final event I was against A-A. Once against A-J offsuit. At the NBC Heads-Up I had Chad Brown all-in when I had kings and he had K-2 clubs on a flop of 9-9-2«. A two of hearts on the river and Chad went on to finish second. Early on I don’t like to jeopardise my stack with only a pair unless I’m pretty sure I have the best hand. If I had limped or the raise is small compared to the chip size I want to get value but not put myself in an underdog situation. Basically, there is no one way I play K-K. It depends on the other players. Howard Lederer In general I don’t like slow-playing them. I am much more likely to slow play A-A as there are no overcards. Also, if you fast-play, a hand like Q-Q or A-K might get themselves in real trouble. The huge win for fast-playing is against A-K. You can easily get all in before the flop as a huge favorite. If you slow-play, not much good can happen. If the board comes low, the A-K will fold. If it comes an ace, you lose. The only good scenario is if it comes the case king, which is very unlikely and not worth the downside of fading the three aces still in the deck. I don’t have much advice post-flop. You will just have to play poker at that point. Obviously, a nice overpair (assuming no ace hits) is usually good. But you can get in big trouble as well.        

Greg Raymer

For starters, only once in my life have I ever laid down K-K preflop, and that was to the fourth preflop raise, all-in, in a spot where  my opponent just couldn’t have Q-Q or worse (over a year later, he confided that he held K-K also in that hand). K-K is a great hand, and you usually want to play it for a big pot. However, you don’t want to slow-play it preflop, and THEN play it for a big pot, as too often you will have been out-flopped, even if there is no ace on the board. No hand that is only one pair is a great hand post-flop, unless a big percentage of the chips already went into the pot preflop. Just like A-A, you never slow-play K-K preflop unless you are able to intelligently get away from the hand post-flop when you’re beat. 

Layne Flack

You could turn ACES face up and I would probably still call. Basically, I’m not folding two kings to 99.9 percent of the field ever. I may slow-play them once in awhile, but that’s about it.  John D’Agostino I like to play them aggressive preflop, but be willing to fold if I think he has A-A. Late in a tournament with big blinds you try to get all in preflop with them, and if someone has aces, so be it.          

Phil Laak

I like to play them till I think I am beat and when I am playing them I like to play them for maximum value. I am playing a lot of hands anyway. I have folded kings and aces post-flop many times and that’s because the pot has turned into a multi-way pot. If I raise and I am getting four callers I have pretty much given up on the hand. Now, if I am against one opponent and the flop comes J-7-3 I am going to be betting and hopefully he has a jack. For the most part it seems like a trick question because you are often getting involved with hands that are weaker than kings, so when you get kings it is really important to be involved. If the flop comes 6-6-3 and you bet and he raises, you might have to make a decision for your whole stack right there. They are very similar to aces in that you win a small pot or lose a big pot. You can kind of drive the traffic there.  

Jerry Yang

For me, pocket kings is a very, very strong hand, but it depends on the position you are in and who has been aggressive. Usually in early position I raise and sometimes I would just call and if there are aggressive players behind me I want them to raise me and then I would either put them all-in or reraise them. Usually in late position I reraise no matter what. I use my position to my advantage. In early position I may just call but in late position I usually raise three to four times the big blind. On the flop if I have some kind of hand I like to push it because if someone has A-Q or A-J they can hit it on the turn or river and I would be a huge underdog. I don’t want that to happen so I take full advantage. I would try to take down the pot as fast as possible. 

Evelyn Ng

I play them pretty straightforward. I like to raise with them – I don’t limp in with them very often. You don’t want to let anyone get out of line and let them in with a cheap ace that they can hit on you. It is pretty hard to fold that hand, generally. The only thing you can hope for is that you aren’t against aces, so preflop you are going pretty far with that hand. After the flop if an ace does come out you might want to continuation bet it even though you might be beat. It depends on the situation and how many callers you have. 

Chris Ferguson

I want to play them aggressively. I like raising with them or reraising with them. There are few situations where you want to slow-play them preflop. It takes a lot to get away from kings preflop. I have only gotten off them a couple of times. For example, if a guy in first position raises and I reraise and he moves all in, that might be a position where I would get rid of kings. If I think he is only capable of making that play with aces or kings I would throw them away. If there is a raise from first position and I reraise and someone comes over the top after me, again that’s another place where you might be able to lay it down. If someone raises from middle position or later position I’m definitely going to call their bet because there are a lot of hands that they can be reraising with. Now, playing kings after the flop...if an ace flops you definitely slow down. This is the kind of hand that I am going to check down, maybe call once if a guy bets, but I’m not going to call anything more than once and maybe not even one bet. If it is a multi-way pot I am not even going to call with kings, but if it is heads up I might call one bet.  

Hoyt Corkins

I always like to put in a raise with pocket kings, but there are certain situations where you might want to limp and hope to get to reraise with it. Sometimes you run into aces with them and sometimes you can get away from them, but most of the time you are going to the mat with K-K. I have folded kings just three or four times preflop and I have been playing poker 29 years. After the flop if you just have one big pair in a cash game you don’t want that pot to get too big on you because then your pair is no good. If you are playing a tournament and the blinds are high and your chip stack isn’t that deep, you just want to go all in at that point. 

Juha Helppi

I practically always raise with K-K if no one else has raised before me preflop. I normally raise 2.5 to 3.5 times the big blind. If a loose-aggressive player has raised before me and I have position on that player, I might just call him instead of reraising. I might just flat-call, especially in a tournament. However, I think this is not a good play against tight and passive types of players because it’s hard to get any more chips from them unless they hit the flop. But loose-aggressive players might bluff all their chips away with no outs. It is very hard to lay K-K down before the flop. I have done it only once in my poker career. A tight opponent made a mini-raise before the flop, I reraised him and he came over the top of me again. I was almost sure that he had A-A, so I laid my hand down, but offered $100 to him if he would show his hand and then showed him my K-K. He didn’t want to take my $100, but showed me A-A anyway. Late in tournaments when the play gets short-handed I tend to often slow-play A-A and K-K. K-K is a bit more dangerous to slow-play, of course, because if an ace comes I might be in trouble. However, when it is short-handed, players tend to get really aggressive if they hit any pair, so K-K is a great hand to slow-play.         

Kenna James

I never get them! Well, that’s not true. I’m known as “The Cowboy,” and I do get the cowboys every once in awhile. Early in a tournament in early position I like to play them with a raise. If I am going to raise with my weaker hands I am going to raise with my stronger hands as well. Sometimes I over-raise in position to disguise the strength of my hand because sometimes people think that the stronger you play, the weaker you are. I like to use some reverse psychology but always erring on the side of strength rather than weakness. When I am short-stacked and I really need to double up and make something happen I will take more of a risk and more of a chance and slow-play with them. Sometimes if there is a lot on the line with them and I am really deep-stacked I will play them aggressive to a certain point, but I will back off to make sure the dead ace doesn’t fall on the board on the flop – then I would assess after that point.  

Jeff Madsen

Kings are just like aces pretty much except they are more vulnerable if you get action and an ace flops. You then kind of have to figure out if your opponent is likely to have an ace. You have to know what to do based on how they act after the flop. For the most part, play kings strongly till you feel like someone has hit an ace. With any big pair when you get action you don’t want the flop to be 6-7-8 or like 8-9-10 where you don’t even have a draw, you just have a big pair. Say you have K-K and you raise and get two or three callers. With that kind of flop and a lot of action it’s not that hard of a hand to fold. A lot of people play aggressive on the flop and it’s usually the best hand but you have to be careful with vulnerable flops. For the most part play them strong preflop. Occasionally you want to limp and you want someone to raise behind you so you can reraise. Sometimes that will look obvious and look like a big pair and sometimes people will put all their money in with A-Q when they hit a queen on a queen-high flop. Pocket kings is a good hand; it’s almost the best hand. It can be vulnerable, but so can any hand. Play it strong and know when to get away from it 

David Chiu

It really depends on what position you are in. If there are two raises in front of me I would just see the flop. If someone is raising in late position, I would reraise him. Post-flop I slow down if an ace flops to see what the reaction is from the other players.