Like pocket aces, pocket kings work best against a short field. You should definitely raise with them preflop, from any position, because they're a huge favorite to be the best hand. As with aces, raise enough to drive out the shoe clerks who can pummel you from below. Three times the big blind is a good point of departure; bet more if others limp in first. As with aces, you don't want a lot of traffic. The trouble with kings, though, is that the traffic they attract usually contains aces. Yes, you'll get calls from underpairs, but you'll also see action from AK, A-Q and A-J, and while you're a favorite against these hands preflop, an ace on the flop puts you in very bad shape.
Suppose you go three times the big blind from late position and get called by the big blind. You don't put him on pocket aces -- he'd have reraised with those -- but nonetheless he bets right out when the flop comes A-6-3 rainbow. Is he on a naked steal? Or does he have the ace? It's a tough puzzle -- one of the toughest in hold'em. Tough as it is, we often make it tougher on ourselves through a psychological landmine I call (somewhat grandiosely) the phenomenon of the stealth ace. Here's how that works.
Kings, like aces, are rare, so kings, like aces, come with a certain sense of entitlement. We've waited patiently for them, and we feel we deserve to profit from them. When that ace hits the flop, it thwarts our hope for the hand. But hope is stubborn stuff, so stubborn that it will make us jump through all sorts of mental hoops convincing ourselves that the ace is not a threat. Sometimes our denial is so strong that we just don't see that ace at all. Hence: the stealth ace.
Don't fall into this trap. Play pocket kings boldly, but not preciously. Treat them as the best hand until evidence suggests otherwise. Don't ignore that evidence, but don't overvalue it, either. Remember, if your foe starts out with an ace, he'll pair it on only one flop out of five. That's not a high likelihood, and that's why we play kings strongly preflop: because they'll most often still be good postflop. Like other big pairs, kings love to snap off top pair, top kicker (what we call top/top). Here's how that happens. You make your standard preflop raise and get called by A-J suited. Now the flop comes J-x-x, and your foe thinks he's sitting pretty. Lay back a little and let him get hooked on the hand. Let him bet big, then come over the top, either taking him off his stack or forcing him to make a tough, tough laydown.
In any case, remember to protect your pair. You don't want weak hands to get in cheap, hit two pair on the flop and trap you for all your chips. If they all fold -- if you don't always get full value from your cowboys -- so what? You're betting both to narrow the field and to define your foes' hands. Information is power in poker, and a preflop raise gives you the information you need to play the hand correctly.
