By lakong on June 6th, 2007 (more posts by author)

There was an interesting post over at 2plus2 discussing a laydown by Chris Moneymaker in Event #3. The action goes like this:

"Chris Moneymaker makes it 1,500 under the gun. Mike Banducci in late position re-raises to 6,200. The small blind goes all in for 24,000 and the big blind also goes all in for his last 8,100. Moneymaker and Banducci both fold. The small blind has 5d5s and the big blind has AdKd and the board is Js 7s 8h 2h 3s. Moneymaker said after the hand that he folded kings. "

The thread can be found here.

Some people could not believe that there is ever a reason to lay down KK PF. Others were not as sure and felt it was a reasonable laydown. I can see folding this hand. I think it all comes down to your read on the BB. Banducci's range is fairly large here -- let's say AQ/AK, most pairs and perhaps even other big cards. Now the SB can also have many hands that KK would like to see like AK, 88-QQ. This is especially true if he's an aggressive player and is putting on a squeeze.

So it all comes down to the read on the BB. Given the action in front of him, what hand does he need to have to make this move. Definitely AA, likely KK. Does he do it with anything less? If he wants to gamble perhaps he does it with AK. I doubt it if he does it will QQ/JJ but maybe some guys do. He likely doesn't have KK given that CM had it. So the question is does he have AK or QQ or does he have AA? It's a tough call. he almost definitely has one of those 3 hands... right? So you are counting on him not having AA and instead having AK or QQ. Hmmm....