Another Hand

Hand of the day - $5/$10 NLHE at hustler

Lesson: Paying attention to stack sizes in order to maximize profitability. Also understanding that other good players are doing the same thing.
Difficulty: Easy
Applicable: Always
History: None with short stack, other than he plays almost everything. Zach and I obviously have a lot of history.

Rob opens for 35 in EP. I pick up KK on my first hand at the table after a long break. I look around and see these stacks remaining in the hand.
Rob has 2500.
I have 1500.
The short stack to my left has 200.
Zach has 2500

The big blind has 1000.

I decided to flat, thinking that the short stack will jam sometimes and reopen action. When he does, sometimes Rob or someone else will attempt to isolate and I will have the opportunity to win a huge pot.

The short stack flats, Zach raises to 100. Rob folds. Zach's 3bet here is quite small. He is making sure there is room to reopen action if the shortstack shoves, so he can isolate him. By raising to 100, he is applying a huge amount of pressure to my calling range. I don't know if the short stack is going to shove, but I know he isn't folding. If the shorty shoves even around 40% of the time, I can't call with any of my speculative hands preflop, because I would put in $100, then zach would reraise shutting me out. For the exact same reason, I should flat two kings here. I call. The short stack calls.

The flop is 4c 6c 5h.

Zach thinks then checks. I look at the shorty and see him grabbing the rest of his chips. I check to let him fire the rest of his stack and possible trap some money from Zach in the middle. The short stack bets $110 all in and Zach calls. I think it's unlikely for Zach to have hit the board with almost anything he 3bet with given he won't be light preflop. Therefore KK should still have crushing equity against his range. I raise to 500 to shut out equity from a hand like AQ, and to get value if he is getting tricky with an overpair.

Zach shoves. I lose to AA and not much else, so I call hoping he has QQ or less. I think he would play QQ identically to AA, so my call is pretty easy.

The BTN has T9c, Zach has 88 and I make a running full house and win.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce