I was playing in a low buy-in NL cash game recently when the following hand came up. I haven't looked at the history and can't remember the exact sequence, but there were a series of raises and re-raises pre-flop, until a player with KK made it about 30x the big blind. Another player moved in, the player holding KK called, and they played heads-up. Of course the player who moved in had AA and it held up.
Afterward something like this showed up in the chat box:
KK Player: Unreal! That's just my luck!
Another Player: Well, what hand did you put him on, the way he bet it?
KK Player: I had KK.
Of course that wasn't the question. This guy was playing his own hand, he liked his KK, and he hadn't put the other player on AA even when the other guy moved in after the pot had been re-raised several times. As someone watching I honestly wasn't sure which of the players had AA, but I was pretty convinced someone did.
Now, I'm not saying I could get away from KK in the same circumstance. There are some pretty bad players at that site, and some of them probably could have made that same play with a hand weaker than AA. But when you've made it 30x the big blind to go and someone raises you again, I think you have to at least consider that they have aces. It doesn't seem this player did.
Every bet that happened in that pre-flop sequence was more information the player with KK could have used to help define his opponent's hand. He had about a third of his stack in the pot, but he was not pot committed. If he could have layed it down there he would have saved the rest, instead of going into the hand a huge dog.
Ted