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.
