Worth considering less chance of hitting AK in multiway pot

This is a theory i've had for a while now, and although i've not sat there and written down results, it's something which i think has some truth to it and is worth considering when holding AK in late pos. If someone raises in early/mid position and there are 2+ callers, it's fairly likely that some of the other players have a king or ace in their hand, in which case they are decreasing your chances of hitting the flop.
In which case is it worth 3 betting when you are unlikely to hit your hand, and lose nearly all of your equity after the flop? Thanks for any advice on this

It would be a great place to 3bet.
1. You have position.

2. You have AK. You can squeeze the other two callers w/3bet. If they have Ax you have them dominated and you def want to play a pot with them.

3. 3bet puts a lot of pressure on the original raiser b/c he faces a raise and 2 players to act behind him still.

3bet AK in lp as much as you can.

and only the original raiser is the real danger as far as having one or more of your outs, the first caller would almost certainly be re raiseng with AA-KK AK and QQ probably too, the 2nd caller is getting odds to stay in with 22+, SC, any BW etc.

Anyway, 3 bet here is a good move IMO, depends on how you see the other players involved, a weak (looking) call by you can be devastating to them when u hit as well tho.........

And devastating to you as well, depending lol

Yea as everyone has said you want to 3 bet AK in position. But also remember that when you miss you still need to c bet to take it down even if you missed. Plus there are going to be a lot of instances where you have your opponent dominated so if you hit top pair try to get it all in.

There is a small effect that if it gets folded to you in LP and you have AK, it is very slightly more likely that you will hit one of your cards, so flipping with 22-QQ is very slightly more favorable in this situation.

Because no one is folding AA/KK/AK in earlier positions and very often people are getting in with AQ/AJ/KQ/Ax, if everyone folds you will have slightly more equity but not enough to make a huge impact (UTG could have folded A2o, UTG+1 had K3o, etc.)

What OP was referring to is not the case when you play against Ax, but the case when Ax folds and you're up against Kx for example. Or a pp.

I have this concept in my head, it's not very clear yet but with the help of you guys maybe we can clear it up some.

Why, for example, do most books give examples with 50 cards left in the deck? They say you have AJ and the chances of hitting are 50/something bla bla bla. You get the idea. There are never 50 cards left in the deck in a NL Hold 'em game. At most there are 48.

Ill have to finish this later because I'm really not in shape right now. Rough night, lol.

Thanks for advice, I lose money with AK because you normally miss and have to c-bet, and at micros people generally don't fold if they have any sort of gutshot draw or pair.

@dogmeat
It's not that there's 50 cards left in the deck, it's that there's 50 unknown cards. When you don't know your opponent(s) holdings, you have to calculate with 50 unknown cards. Of course, if you can pin your opponent(s) on specific holdings, you reduce the number of unknown cards in your calculations accordingly. However most textbook examples don't do this.

_dogmeat said:

What OP was referring to is not the case when you play against Ax, but the case when Ax folds and you're up against Kx for example. Or a pp.

Im not sure what you mean here. Why has Ax folded and Kx stayed around? OP mentioned a raiser and minimum 2 callers...

I have this concept in my head, it's not very clear yet but with the help of you guys maybe we can clear it up some.

Why, for example, do most books give examples with 50 cards left in the deck? They say you have AJ and the chances of hitting are 50/something bla bla bla. You get the idea. There are never 50 cards left in the deck in a NL Hold 'em game. At most there are 48.

Ill have to finish this later because I'm really not in shape right now. Rough night, lol.

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And it was already explained that there are 50 cards you have not seen, so all of them are potentially in play. Given the action you have seen from your opponents, you can possibly eliminate cards from ranges of certain players, but the only cards you know with 100% certainty are not still to come are the 2 in your hand.

fletchdad said:

And it was already explained that there are 50 cards you have not seen, so all of them are potentially in play. Given the action you have seen from your opponents, you can possibly eliminate cards from ranges of certain players, but the only cards you know with 100% certainty are not still to come are the 2 in your hand.

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Yeah, that's where my thought process stopped and I had to take a break I was referring to exactly this - you can't wager on the (unknown) state of something with 100% certainty (e.g. villain's cards). By the same token, we shouldn't subtract the burn card. Although it's always there, it's an unknown and it doesn't affect the game in any way, so why should it have an effect on your calculations.

The case where Ax folds and Kx stays around is when someone has A3 and someone else has KJ or KQ or something like that, which is a much better hand than A3, although not as strong in absolute terms.

The way I interpreted the original poster's question, the action before you indicates that there are little to no A or K left in the deck. So your hand will more or less be A high. That's fine against the other A-rag and K-rag hands, but you will likely lose to any pocket pair.

Let's say someone has a pocket pair, sees the same action that the original poster saw, and concludes that none of the A-rag and K-rag hands are going to improve their hands above his pocket pair. So he's going to stick around. Does someone's range of pocket pairs have to be taken into account on this as well?

It still seems like the preflop raise is a good more here, but if there's a calling station with pocket pairs, it's going to be a painful hand for AK.

I agree with Puratory's comments

PurgatoryD said:

The way I interpreted the original poster's question, the action before you indicates that there are little to no A or K left in the deck. So your hand will more or less be A high. That's fine against the other A-rag and K-rag hands, but you will likely lose to any pocket pair.

Let's say someone has a pocket pair, sees the same action that the original poster saw, and concludes that none of the A-rag and K-rag hands are going to improve their hands above his pocket pair. So he's going to stick around. Does someone's range of pocket pairs have to be taken into account on this as well?

It still seems like the preflop raise is a good more here, but if there's a calling station with pocket pairs, it's going to be a painful hand for AK.

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I guess first off, I am speaking in MTT and STT situations, and dont know if OP is referring to cash, in which cast this is TL;DR

For me, the action before does not indicate little or no AK left at all. The initial raiser could have a wide range of hands here, and reads will be important - as they will on all callers to follow, if available. Lets go from random players.

Initial raiser: AA-TT maybe 99 in MP. AQ+, AJs+ (and MTT depending on relative stacks perhaps 9Ts+ or even 44+ or given some players a lot more.....)

What is the first caller's range going to be? Certainly high A's, but a lot more hands as well. Also read dependent, for example the 1st caller is observant and thinks the following players are stations, he will call with a very wide range here KQ, KTs, most PPs, many high connectors SC and high suited gaped connectors, where as if the following players are LAG, he may be folding all but his better hands here, and he will be re raising if he stays in. He will be raising any AK or AQs if he plays them, so a call is telling me his range is not Ax here as much as PP,SC or BW s and os.

Second caller - his pot odds let him call with a very wide range here, now Axs - A3-5 - are in his range, but also a wide variety of other cards here.

So my point is, I am not counting my As and Ks as lost outs here, and am 3 betting if I am staying in this pot, which I am going to do most of the time, and will need a good reason to NOT 3 bet here. (I am not saying there will never be situations where I am mucking here, just that there wont be many, and they will need solid reasons)

I believe any action on the MP raise will be 3 bets with a high A, then I can decide when that happens how I see the 3 bettor and what I want to do now. If I 3 bet and get 4 bet on PF, then my reads will be important if I have any. Against a 9/7 my AK dont look so good no more. Against 54/38 I am sorely tempted to get it all in.

fletchdad said:

So my point is, I am not counting my As and Ks as lost outs here, and am 3 betting if I am staying in this pot, which I am going to do most of the time, and will need a good reason to NOT 3 bet here.

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Your point is well taken and you provide some good examples as to why you are going to be good with a 3 bet in this situation. I agree, and like I said, I will probably be raising as well because it's going to be a pretty specific situation that would cause me to fold.

I ran a little pokerstove experiment to get at the heart of what I think the original poster was getting at and what I, to some degree, see as well. Note: this is very simplified so of course we can't generalize it and make more out of it than what it is. But here's the situation.

If the hero is in with AK and there is one villain in with a range of AK and any pocket pair, then the hero wins 44% of the time if they go to showdown.

However, if you add two additional villains with the range of A-rag, then the hero wins less than 27% of the time. Even if these two villains end up folding, just killing their combined two aces (we'll assume that neither had bullets) reduces the hero's chance of winning to 36%.

So I think people are giving the proper advice, but hopefully this makes things clear about a potential danger: you're going to have to get any villains with pocket pairs in their range out of the hand or else things don't look good. So yeah, if you've got someone that you know will call with any pocket pair at all no matter the raise, then you might want to save your money. But if you can get him off of 22 through 99, say, with a good sized bet, then that's the way to go.

Note: I am not a statistician and generally cannot operate software properly, so take all percentages given for what they are!

I know... how bout 'Just shove'!

(I miss OP )

is this cash or tournament poker how many blinds do you have? what has the style of play been so far these are all important factors. for example if your in a tournament and have 20 big blinds this is a shove like 99% of the time baring exceptional circmstances.

if your on a cash table 200 big blinds deep this is a lot different however. it would depend on the style of play of your oppenents greatly. eg 3 betting is good but if every single one of them is calling and not folding if they catch anything then it can be difficult. with a multi way pot two pair is possible, and hitting an ace pr king could lose u big. folding is not really something you should be doing. if you can isolate it against just one two players and have position 3 betting is a very good play you can c bet it if its checked to you and if your called and have failed to improve assess your situation from there.

if your in the sb and therefore will be first t act and no one folds its a difficult spot.

if this tournament poker then you should be shoving here a lot of the time. (unless its a deep stacked tournament or your at the early stages of the tournament and still have 100b+)

if its a cash table where your deep, a lot of the play is going to depend on the style of your oppents. what stakes is this? I mean $5 and $10 no limit there are usually a lot of fish who would get it in light and thus having ak and hitting top pair tiop kicker might not be a mistake to get it in. $100 nl it almost certainly is.

mind you there is fluctation and maniacs on higher stakes and people that more or less know what there doping on low stakes so thats just a general guideline.

what I would say is if you generally do not know how to read the table and play this hand when your deep stacked in this spot, then you should not be playing nl cash, unless of course your aware your going to be making a loss at the game and either just doing for fun or to try and learn and improve your game.

Wow, and to think we took OP serious here.

But at least we got some interesting discussion from some players that are not total idiots or trolls.........

Hum that's interesting, so you would fold Ak in last positions if you were reraised ( 3 betted again ) ???

Or you would go all in...

multyway pot ak is as good a hand as mi foot.... even if u hit a or k u prob gunna be up v trips draws etc ,,i wuddd limp ak multy defo see wat comes on flop
then tred carefully

TIGERSTUMP said:

multyway pot ak is as good a hand as mi foot.... even if u hit a or k u prob gunna be up v trips draws etc ,,i wuddd limp ak multy defo see wat comes on flop
then tred carefully

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APRIL FOOLS!

magget16 said:

Thanks for advice, I lose money with AK because you normally miss and have to c-bet, and at micros people generally don't fold if they have any sort of gutshot draw or pair.

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well u wont always miss and u dont have to c-bet

it's not "necessarily" bad poker to check call AK ... if your opponent doesnt bet the turn, then u might be able to take control of the pot back sensing weakness ... you might also hit ur A or K ... i mean think about an open ended straight draw ... u need one of 2 cards to make a hand ... same with AK ... either one will do ya .. sure it's not as big of a hand, but it usually gets the job done

i think it's fun to play hands differently

plus, if others are familiar with your play at the table you should mix up you're game ... if u always continue bet when u miss or check raise when hit ... peeps will be onto you

???

Poker is such a subjective game that this can be both true and false. For example, if you are at a fairly loose table and the table experiments with suited gappers, connectors and other good multiway hands, then you lose absolutely no equity in a 3 bet; however, if you are at a tight table and the exact same situation occurs, I may just call or even fold depending on which players make the call. My reasoning behind a fold would be overlap combined with the illusion that top pair is going to be good. If 4 go to a flop and the flop goes K-Q-4 or K-J-4 rainbow, you are likely to lose a lot more than the preflop call to a two paint hand or even a Q-T that nails an A on river forcing you to call top two against broadway. This is my deduction for these situations in a cash game and early in a tourney. If I am late in a tourney though, and have already passed the bubble, I will almost always jam here because I am interested in accumulating chips at this point and how better to accumulate chips than force dead-call money out before a flop. So, as usual in poker, it all depends on where, who, how much, and ones personal preference on advancing in a tourney or accumulating chips.