How Wide of a Range Do You Call All In Against a Tight Opponent?
I have one more hand to share from the recent �5K buy-in European Poker Tour event from which we��ve been looking at hands lately, one that involves some thinking about preflop hand ranges and how to play premium hands.
In this one the blinds were 500/1,000 with a 100 ante, and the hand began with me looking down at K?K? from early position. I raised to 2,500 and it folded to a tight, older player in the cutoff who three-bet to 6,300. He and I both were deep-stacked with around 80,000 to begin the hand, with him outchipping me by a little. Then a good younger player on the button with roughly the same-sized stack cold-called the reraise.
As I discuss in the video below, the older player who reraised was almost certainly doing so with a very narrow range of premium hands. I also consider what hands the cold-caller might have �� hands good enough to call with, but not to four-bet.
It folded back to me and I reraised to 18,000. The tight, older player then went all in, forcing me to think some more about what range of hands he could have �� as well as what he might be thinking I have (and am willing to four-bet).
The cold-caller folded and I called all in. Take a look at what happened:
When I originally shared this hand, I had some ask about my putting an 80-big blind stack at risk with pocket kings in this spot versus a tight, older player. I respond to that in the video, explaining the reasons why I am comfortable doing so.
Would you be willing to go broke before the flop with the second-best possible hand? If you were in my opponent��s situation, how would you play your range?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,300,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
