How to Play Pocket Kings (Many Players Get This Wrong) | Upswing Poker Level-Up #54

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady with poker pro Uri Peleg. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike Brady (00:00):

Let’s level up your poker skills with the second best starting hand in the game. I’m about to kick it over to world-class poker coach Uri Peleg, who will teach you some key concepts for playing pocket Kings. This is a video I pulled straight from the new Lab 2.0 course over on upswingpoker.com. I thought it was a great one and I really wanted to share it with the Level Up squad. A quick word of warning, he goes over several hand examples in this one. I personally found it easy enough to follow along when just listening to the audio, but you can always check out the video feed if needed. Most podcast platforms support the video version of this podcast, but we also have it over on YouTube just in case. With that said, let’s hear from Uri.

Uri Peleg (00:42):

Hey guys, what’s up? This is going to be a video about How to Play Pocket Kings. And the question of how to play pocket Kings is actually a philosophical poker question and it touches deep into what’s so beautiful about the game because when you get dealt Kings, your brain instantly gets flooded with this feeling of happiness and potential, and “I’m going to win money. It’s going to be a great hand…” Like, a good thing just happened. But the way poker works is: everything holds until the cards get delt out, right? That’s how Hold’em works. So just because you’ve got Kings, you might get a bad flop. What do you do with Kings with a bad flop? Well, what do you do if you have a beautiful singing voice and you’re very talented and you practice your entire life that you find yourself in a place where everyone is deaf or singing is banned? I’m sorry for getting so metaphorical, but just because it’s Kings doesn’t mean it’s going to win a big pot.

Uri Peleg (01:47):

Everything is dependent on everything else. So just like Five Six suited, usually misses, sometimes you flop a straight flush, Kings more often than not is going to win the hand, but fairly often it’s not going to want a big pot and it’s not going to be a very strong hand. So a hand like pocket Kings, even though it is a premium hand preflop, once you see a flop, the value changes between still premium, still strong, overpair, super premium where maybe it’s overpair on a disconnected rainbow board or it’s top set or something like this, or a medium strength hand if an Ace comes or the board is too connected. So we want to differentiate and let go of our preconceived notion of what Kings has the potential to do and see what it can actually do. And the key to playing Kings is to take that and really deeply in it’s a principle and a thought that will help you in poker in general in a lot of spots is constantly reevaluating how much is your hand worth given the board and the action, et cetera, et cetera.

Uri Peleg (02:56):

So yeah, we’re going to take a look at a few different situations. These are not specifically filtered and just take a look at what can happen with Kings. So here’s one hand. These are all played between very good players. So cutoff raises, we three bet with Kings, cutoff calls. We get a Four Four Queen two-tone board. In this situation, amazing board for Kings. When you re-raise your opponent, he’s less likely to have low cards after calling, but also just a Four misses him a lot. So we’re not losing to very much. We very often are ahead. We want to get tons of money in and we decide to start out with a check because we’re out of position, and when you’re out of position, you need to be a bit tricky sometimes. You can’t just only check weak hands and only bet strong hands. So we check, our opponent bets small, and we’re like, “okay, let’s go for it.

Uri Peleg (03:52):

Let’s check-raise. We have Kings”. He calls. Turn is Six of clubs. There is now a flush. Kings is a lot less strong. Now if we put in a stack with Kings, we probably would not be far ahead, but it’s still ahead, right? Our opponent could still have a lower pair with clubs or just a Queen. So we bet small. Our opponent makes a small raise and now we have to instantly reevaluate. Because, like we said, King’s beautiful hand preflop, we’re way ahead. Great flop, we’re way ahead. Dangerous turn. And suddenly our opponent wakes up and he’s telling a story about, “I have King’s beat”. I’m raising like this. I probably have something like a flush. And now our beautiful, beautiful Kings ran into a situation where it’s now playing defense. It’s a bluff-catcher, it’s not such a great hand. So we would call because we can improve to a flush or we can improve to a boat with two Kings.

Uri Peleg (04:49):

And it’s not a big raise, but in your head the evaluation has to shift, the excitement has to drop. We’re now playing in the real world. Kings is not that special given the action and the runout. So we call. River Ace of diamonds. I think the Ace of diamonds makes what was already evident on the turn even more visible because even on the turn, our opponent would not have been raising us with just a Queen. So the fact that there is an Ace there, it drives home… The value of your Kings is just beating bluffs at this point. So while on the turn we could improve, now it’s just beating bluffs. We now lose to bluffs that had an Ace. But how many people bluff with an Ace? So it didn’t change much, it just makes it more self-evident. So we check, our opponent checks back and we lose to Four Five suited and we find out we were actually beat on the flop. Believe it.

Mike Brady (05:46):

You are watching a video that was pulled from the brand New Lab 2.0 course over on upswingpoker.com. The world’s best poker coach, Uri Peleg, has spent the better part of the last year creating a clear learning path to poker mastery. No matter where you’re currently at in your poker journey, Lab 2.0 will help you take your skills to the next level and beyond. If you’re serious about improving your No-Limit Hold’em game, go check it out. Now let’s get back to Uri.

Uri Peleg (06:13):

Cutoff raises. We get dealt premium Kings, we re-raise, he calls, Ten Ten Nine two-tone board. So, we lose to trips, but we are fairly well ahead with Kings and unless our opponent shows us he has trips through his actions, we’re going to start building a pot with Kings. So we make a small bet, he calls and we get the turn Ace. In this situation, how do you play Kings? Well, the only reason there’s a dissonance there, and the only reason there’s a question is the emotional charge Kings has and the fact that we expect to win with Kings. Because if I asked you, how do you play with something like pocket Eights here? You would say check. How do you play with something like, I don’t know, Jack Nine? You’d say check. Now, Kings is a bit better than those hands, but it’s not that much better.

Uri Peleg (07:06):

So it can either check or bet small. Those are the options. And if it faces a lot of action, you’re going to have a tough decision. And the fact that your hand has two Kings is not going to be too relevant anymore. So here we choose to bet small, kind of pot controlling, we’re really hoping not to get raised or for our opponent to call and for him to check back the river. Any more money than this going in and we’re definitely in trouble. But our opponent folds. This is the good scenario for Kings here, which just shows you how weak Kings is that you bet so small and you really hope he folds. Now we’re blind versus blind. We raise Kings and we get called. Board comes Ace Six Six rainbow. So immediately we’re losing to an Ace, we’re losing to a Six, very unexciting situation with Kings and we immediately reevaluate and we say, “I have a hand that wants a smallish pot.

Uri Peleg (08:03):

It doesn’t really need protection, so I’m going to make small bets or just try to check it down and that’s it”. So here we check, our opponent bets small. We’re going to call Kings. We check the Jack turn, he checks back. We get the Four river. Now we either bet small, hope he calls with a Jack, or we can check, let him sometimes bluff. We decide to check, he checks back with pocket Threes and we win a small pot, which is really the ideal situation with Kings on this kind of board. The small pot is the sweet spot once you get a bad board like this. And that’s what we would be aiming for. Now, just to wrap up, because Kings does sometimes win some big ones, I will show you guys a hand where we actually win with Kings.

Uri Peleg (08:50):

So here we open with Kings. Three bet, cold four bet. Loose players, so we decide to go for a five bet with Kings… Again, some people we might even get out of the way, but these are fairly loose players. We get a great board, Queen Five Five two-tone. Of course we are losing to a Five. Our opponent could have something like Ace Five suited or Four Five suited. We are losing to pocket Queens. We’re losing to slow played Aces, but so much money is in, we can’t really worry about that too much. He checks to us, we bet small. He calls. Turn is Six of spades, two flush draws. He checks, we bet, he calls. River Seven of diamonds. Six and Seven don’t matter too much given the preflop action. So we go all-in and our opponent calls us with pocket Tens. And you’ll note in this hand our opponent gave us no reason to think he has us beat at any point and we play appropriately.

Uri Peleg (09:50):

Here we re-raise with Kings. We get a Queen Three Five two-tone board, so we are losing to some hands, but definitely we’re well ahead. Our opponent leads out and we decide to raise. He calls. Turn King of diamonds. So we have top set, very dynamic board. Throw in another bet which gets called. River Jack of club. So we now lose if he had Ace Ten with a flush draw or Ten Nine with a flush draw. But certainly well ahead, we go all-in and get an unfortunate fold. But yeah, we’re going to have some hands like these with Kings as well. These are the easy ones to play. Hopefully this helps you with a tougher ones

Mike Brady (10:28):

That was a sneak peek into one of the early sections of the new Lab 2.0 course over on upswingpoker.com. The section is called Level 2 Quick Wins. It covers how to play pocket Kings, Ace King, top pair weak kicker, low pocket pairs, and what to do when hands don’t go as planned. Those are relatively beginner friendly topics because it’s so early in the course. But the cool thing about Lab 2.0 is it meets you where you’re currently at. You’re going to start by ta King a personality quiz, takes about thirty seconds to complete, and then based on your answers, you’re going to get dropped into the appropriate point in the Lab 2.0 learning path. From there, you’re going to continuously improve your skills on your way to poker mastery. Lab 2.0 comes out this upcoming Monday on upswingpoker.com. Uri and the rest of the team are extremely proud of what they put together and are excited for you to check it out. Take care.