Walking Home to Houston

One of the hands that I seem to have most difficulty with is AK, or AK suited. I am reasonably happy with how to deal with it pre-flop, or if the flop contains an ace or a king, but my difficulties come when neither of those cards are in the flop, or with AK suited where the flop has none of that suit and neither an ace or a king. Specifically, what to do in that situation if somebody puts in a big bet (maybe half the pot or more) after that type of flop. Usually I fold.

I am attaching a picture of how the table was set up in the CC PokerStars Re-Buy today, simply to show where everybody was sitting and where the button was. Rex had a lot more chips at the time, and DankHugh had a lot fewer. I am CO, everybody folds around to DankHugh, who puts in a bet of 3 or 4 times the BB, others fold, I call, others fold. Maybe I should have re-raised or gone all-in? Anyway the flop was something like 5, 6, 7 rainbow, DankHugh does another big bet and I fold. Felt as if I had just wasted a lot of chips, don't like that feeling.

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So here is another example from the same tournament. I am the SB and shortest stack on the table, I have AK. Everyone has folded around to the button, Mosquito68, who has raised. BB is second smallest stack, second only to me. What should I do?

Incidentally I haven't posted these in the hand analysis section, as I don't have all the information available that seems to be demanded over there. Hope you guys have enough information to go on, if not please ask.

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I don't think there is any other answer than it is time to shove here. You have less than 7BB left, have $150 already invested, and it very easily could be a steal attempt on the button. Not to mention, if you shove, and button folds, you have just about doubled up. Shove shove shove.

Thanks. Any advice about the one that I tried to explain in the first post, please?

If it was a raise to 600 and your stack was similar to the stack in the 1st screenshot then it is a shove pretty much everytime. When shortstacked or with an M below 20 you are beginning to look for a double up asap really. AK is a great hand as only AA has it crushed and KK is the only other hand you fear so it is strong enough to push all-in with and therefore it is a hand that gives you a lot of fold equity. This is crucial as you can fold out hands that are ahead of you e.g any middle pair.

If the blinds were 100/200 and the raise was to 600 then a proper 3-bet would be to 1800 and that is more than a third of your stack so it is a shove. We can expect to get called by AQ another AK, maybe AJ and any pair 88-AA and fold out a few other holdings that would be raising.

AK is a really important hand in tournies and I had a hand with Dank Hugh funnily enough last night in the rebuy. Dank raised in EP to 3-times with blinds at 200/400, I had QQ in the small blind and 3-bet to 3600. I had 15000, around there, and Dank Hugh had me covered. Dank 4-bet me below min, not putting me all-in. I see AA a lot here but I have to shove everytime, one because how much of my stack I have committed but two because of the possibility of AK here. I shoved, Dank had to call 2000 more and he had AK and I doubled up and donked my chips off w/ A9 but anyway you can see the power of the AK here. It looks a lot like AA or KK and when you get called you are still only a 45% underdog most of the time, maybe a 73% favourite and against KK still only a 30% underdog. AA is just unlucky.

I hope that helps.

When I went all in leading on from the example in post 2, his KQ took me out of the tournament

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Yes thanks Melkor, I really appreciate you giving such detailed reasons for what you say, it helps me to understand better where you are coming from, and the reasoning behind it. I think there are two things that play in the back of my mind:

1) The very fact that AK is called "Walking Home to Houston", and the quote which is allegedly the background to that name:So I don't want to overplay it!

2) If the ace or king are paired on the flop I have TPTK, and if 2 of the same suit flop when I have AK suited I have a nut flush draw. What concerns me is when none of those things happen, and I am uncertain of what the percentages would be against me with a rainbow flop that contains neither an ace or a king.

Thanks again for posting!

Playing alllin in that situation where your shortstacked with AK is basically the right move there,but sometimes ya get a feel for the table and just about know you will lose if you go allin.So the right thing to do is..it depends.If you play by the book poker,going allin is correct here.

nightmoves44 I very much agree with what you say and I do tend to play more conservatively and cautiously in CC buy-ins, simply because the opposition tends to be so tough. I did actually manage a couple of blind steals in this tournament though, so I am becoming a little braver.

Actually I just realised I said it was Mosquito68 that raised, but of course it was bryan24 that put the pressure on, not Mosquito68!

Post 1 makes no sense to me.

And clearly post 2 is shove time.

You got your cards in ahead, you can't ask for much more.

The second and third hands are shoves for me at that point in the tournament. Just a cooler that he hit his three outer on the river, you really had him totally dominated there. Just the way it goes sometimes, but as played nothing you could do.

I appreciate your honesty, but it might have sounded more constructive if you had asked some questions, so I could work out what information was missing. Please ignore the picture, that is purely there to show positions at the table. I didn't have HoverSnap running to take a screenshot at the time of the AK hand, by the time we had gone one round and I could take the screenshot two major stacks had changed radically, because Rex and DankHugh had a big shoot-out between AQs and QQ (or something like that) and Rex had passed a huge pile of chips to DankHugh. If I knew how to track down hand histories I could probably give more info, but I'm extremely inexperienced in Hand Analysis.

But if I am CO, everybody folds around to somebody in mid position (DankHugh in this case), that person raises to three or four times the BB, everybody folds around to me in the CO. I have AK.

1) Should I call

2) Should I raise

3) Should I go all in

Let's suppose that I flat call, and the flop comes 5, 6, 7 rainbow. DankHugh puts in a big raise, let's say more than one third of the pot.

4) Should I fold (which is what I usually do in that situation)

If you need more information please tell me what you need to know, and don't assume that I will know. Thanks for posting!

No worries, glad I can help a bit.

Yeah, I have heard that quote too. I want to say that my reasoning is for tournaments only. In cash games, which is where that saying comes from, you really don't want to overplay AK preflop and there are many ways to play it in different situations, a lot usually villain dependent. It is because of the deep stacks in play that AK's value diminishes slightly. In tournies it really is such an important hand as when it comes to all-in decisions it factors on middling pairs when getting it in, on small pairs when getting it in and on c-bets on the flop after a preflop raise. As I said, its strength lies in pretending to be something it isn't and also in how it fares when seeing 5 cards against almost all hands.

On rainbow flops with AK a whole host of factors come into play. Whether or not we were the aggressor preflop, whether we are in position, how the villain has been playing, how we have been playing and stack sizes. If we are in position on say a 358 rainbow board and we are checked to a lot of the time we are c-betting, even if it is for our whole stack to make a pot sized bet. Sure, a lot of pairs look us up but we still have 6 outs to make an A or a K. Often, we will get a fold from a similar two high cards.

Just remember in tournies it is a strong hand and continue to play it that way.

EDIT: I didn't read your questions there NWF. To number 4, we usually have to fold as that is the way it goes. But we will be getting into less of number 4 spots if we choose number 3 and get it all-in more often.

Yes although I was disappointed to be out of the tournament, I did feel reasonably confident that I had played that hand correctly. Thanks for the post!

Yes Melkor, so far I have only really played tournaments. I want to be reasonably happy with my tournament play before I start delving into the murky mysteries of cash games.

The pic in post #1 threw me off.

Shortstacked, and somebody else is offering you the best opportunity you may see between now and blinding out, you shove to the raise. Don't reraise, just shove. Show no doubt. If he folds you win, if he calls with anything less than a premium pair its a race so most of the time you will be ahead.

If he shows you AA, or KK, and he wins, so be it. Don't sweat over it. Slap yourself upside the head telling yourself you could have waited for a good JTo in position and maybe got lucky.

Thanks DJ!

One day, hopefully reasonably soon, I can share some of your self-confidence!

all in preflop if u have less than 20bb is the best play and its not even close
flating is the worse play preflop as ur left in an awkward situation on soooo many flop
folding is bad because well, it is AK and it has a tremendous amount of equity preflop

on the flop, u have to fold unless u have major reads on dank, but u should be trying to get it in preflop with AK

why did u flat btw?

Because I didn't want to overplay AK, and be walking home to Houston?

Has little to nothing to do with self confidence.

You find yourself in a situation where you believe you have to play hard and quick. So play hard and quick. Simple.

Like pantin says tho, AK in this situation is not something you want to flat call. You want to throw it back in Danks face, hard. Make him sweat it. The pressure is off you, and on him. Pressure causes leaks. He wont sweat it with his stack, but the theory is general. He probably calls with any pair and AK. If he calls with less than AK, then he is exposing himself more than most want to in his situation.

At this point Danks range is huge. He can, and probably has been raising with impunity (not giving a shit), and everybody else is playing scared against him. Estimate you are ahead of his range 90-95% of he time when holding AK suited or not. This is nothing really about Dank. This is about anyone in a situation like Dank is in this situation. Massive table chip lead. In many ways it is his job to pressure the field.

Bad answer

Actually I would argue that it does have something to do with self-confidence. Please bear in mind that I play at the two extremes of the poker spectrum at the moment, I play in freerolls and I play in CC buy-ins. In CC buy-ins most players are good players, in freerolls most players are not as good. So in the CC buy-ins I feel totally outclassed, I go there because I am hoping to learn something, but I am extremely aware that a lot of strategies that work for me in freerolls will not work there.At the time of the first hand mentioned in post 1 here, Rex was a big chip leader and DankHugh had the second biggest stack. However having said that, once Rex folded DankHugh effectively became the biggest stack playing this hand, so what you said still bears some relevance. Thanks again for your insight!

Thanks for all the input guys, much appreciated!

Probably the most useful comment so far, if I was to to single out one particular thing, would be this one:So "walking home to Houston" doesn't really apply to AK in a tournament setting, which is where I am virtually always playing at this point in time.

Im shopving here now.Odss are the arent goin to be carsd comin better than that.He was prolly siitin with jj or somethin like that,atleast what is betten like.I will try my odds there and hopefully hes just tryin to steal with a bluff.If i had a bigger stack i would definatly had folded too.That is such a trick hand there and with the prefopl raise from him odds are he didnt hit ne thing on the flop.I wouldnt think he would be playin 89 or something likee that but it depends on what reads u got from him up to this point.