The situations where I just flat preflop with KK are pretty rare but I think this is a good candidate. 

We are last to act and guaranteed HU. Even if we just call we have an SPR under 2, so it should be pretty easy to get it in. Even better, V has us covered so will be more likely to call it off when we do. If we flat, there is 6500 in the pot and 11,000 behind. If we let V c-bet the SPR could be near 1 and we can either c/r or continue to slow-play depending on the board texture and any other info we can gain. 

I think we can comfortably give up if there is an A on the flop. We’ll still have 16BB after paying the SB (blinds paid this orbit).

While I don’t mind the shove, I’m not sure it is the max value line, depending on the V. If V is is opening 15% it is probably better than if V is opening 30%. The problem I see is that if V is aware that his UTG open should look strong and then we shove, I don’t think we ever look weak. I don’t think a shove necessarily looks weaker than a min 3-bet even with our stack size. Either way I think we look strong but the min 3-bet might keep it cheap enough for V to want to see a flop, leave room for V to 4-bet-shove, and, perhaps to some, look fishy and easy to dismiss.

Again, of the 3 options, I think the shove is a good default thing to do, but I think I flat in this case.

joelshitshow said
I think flatting in the KK hand would make more sense in a higher-value tournament or one closer to the bubble or in the money. For a $5 tournament in the middle stages, it’s probably better to shove unless we have a specific read on V.

While I think you might be underestimating the difference the tournament buy-in makes in general here are a couple of thoughts:
– Worse players are more likily to call a flop shove with top-pair or a draw, though even good players might call off with top pair with the SPR so low.
– Being closer to the bubble should cause people to be even tighter and perhaps have better players in the field, so I think that adds value to flatting.

…I just think the range of hands that call the shove is smaller (less likily to get more value) versus the range that we want to see the flop and even air may give us one more bet.

Just making a case for a slow-play. I’d love to hear more debate!