Why I folded AK pre-flop.....

Villain bets a big PF raise.
I might have an edge, but whatever he has, it's still close to 50/50.


AK vs. ATC = 65/35
AK vs. any pair = 43/57
AK vs. B'way/Pair = 58/41

I wasn't in the mood to lose to a coin flip. I don't want my night to come down to almost a coin flip. I'd rather go down betting with real showdown value or value betting, and getting a bad beat, or betting when I have the nuts.

I think patience is a key in poker.
Am I totally wrong?

If villain shoves pre and it's only 10% of your stack, then go for it. If villain has about as many chips as you do, then I wouldn't blame you for folding

Without the size of your stack and villain, and it is difficult to say what you should do...
Also would not prevent some information about villain..

Since you said "go down betting", I'll assume this was a tournament. What you state about AK Preflop is only part of my equation.
What are the relative stacks?
What percentage of your stack are you risking?
How many are left to act bhind you?
Do any of the players to your left have you covered?
Are they soooooted?
Is it early or late in the tourney--bubble?
Has this player been sitting and folding for the past hour?
I could go on and on.

I play more live cash games than anything lately. More and more AK is no big deal for me. It's just a drawing hand. If I haven't initiated the action, I am definitely taking the questions above into consideration. I bet I fold in 75% of all situations!

No, cash game. 200NL

Who cares what percentage of my stack it is?
I don't want to play coin flips, period.

RickAversion said:

Who cares what percentage of my stack it is?
I don't want to play coin flips, period.

Click to expand...

I have to agree with you there.
I feel a player can acquire the skill to play for better then just coin flips.
the reason they play for coin flips is because they are only putting players on ranges and do not know if they are ahead or behind .

I can get my money in better then just on a coin flip. If im i a coin flip situation then I am more then likely miss read the players hand.

Funny I have heard players say that they need luck and to win 4 coin flips a game to win LOL

God Skill at the Tables

RICK,I not shure the patience is a key in poker.
Perhaps at some point in the tournament,but on cash game i never play like that.reason...... These players are always DETECTED, if you play on the patience, then that means that 90 percent of hand fold.
when U get a good starting hand and call, all other players clearly know you have a good cards in your hand and just automatically avoid game with you.
what Imean... , very difficult to win big pot when the game in such a way

akran75 said:

RICK,I not shure the patience is a key in poker.
Perhaps at some point in the tournament,but on cash game i never play like that.reason...... These players are always DETECTED, if you play on the patience, then that means that 90 percent of hand fold.
when U get a good starting hand and call, all other players clearly know you have a good cards in your hand and just automatically avoid game with you.
what Imean... , very difficult to win big pot when the game in such a way

Click to expand...

I agree. When you know a really tight almost nitty player shoves... YOU KNOW it's time to fold unless you got pocket aces or kings etc. So all they collect is the blinds most of the time.

RickAversion said:

Who cares what percentage of my stack it is?
I don't want to play coin flips, period.

Click to expand...

You are losing out value, lots of people make large pre flop raises with hands like AQ, AJ, A10 that's why its important to know what % of stack. You often will have most hands dominated.

I have folded AK pre many times but I knew the opponents and their bets were way to much of my stack to risk, it takes money to make money.

The questions tbdbitl posed are very important things you need to consider.




.

Zorba, good point, but at best, you've got a 60/40 edge against any 2 cards.
I prefer better odds, like shoving when I have a very strong hand.

It would depend on the stack, but if that is ur style then why would you ask the question, because it seems to me that you are a cautious player, and do not like taking risks, so for you that is a good fold, for someone wanting to risk it it is not a good fold. Good luck to youand hopefully you are making a lot of money

RickAversion said:

Zorba, good point, but at best, you've got a 60/40 edge against any 2 cards.
I prefer better odds, like shoving when I have a very strong hand.

Click to expand...

Rick (Ladybugger), you are missing the point of akran, sil3nt, and Zorba's posts. Good players will quickly realize how conservatively you play and they will exploit your weakness. They will 3-bet you EVERY TIME you're in a hand, knowing that you'll fold if you don't have ace, kings or queens. If this is how you intend to play, you might as well play with your cards face up.

Good Luck.

-HooDooKoo

RickAversion said:

Villain bets a big PF raise.
I might have an edge, but whatever he has, it's still close to 50/50.


AK vs. ATC = 65/35
AK vs. any pair = 43/57
AK vs. B'way/Pair = 58/41

I wasn't in the mood to lose to a coin flip. I don't want my night to come down to almost a coin flip. I'd rather go down betting with real showdown value or value betting, and getting a bad beat, or betting when I have the nuts.

I think patience is a key in poker.
Am I totally wrong?

Click to expand...

RickAversion said:

No, cash game. 200NL

Click to expand...

I understand AK is hard to play vs a raise but you can't make a habit out of folding premium hands in position. There are a number of ways to play this hand, none of which are without risk. Folding outright is bad, calling with the intention of folding to any CBet is worse. Raising is my goto play v. one opponent but you could also call/float, call/bet, call/raise, any one of those is +EV. Even if it isn't it will pay off in other ways such as showing yourself to be a tough opponent allowing you to pick up more hands with less effort.

Unwillingness to put your stack at risk is only hurting you and is a huge advantage to anyone who picks up on it. Don't be stupid about it but if effective stacks are small enough than your risk is somewhat limited and by raising preflop it reduces the Stack-to-Pot Ratio making postflop decisions alot easier. Read up on it. There are some good threads here and elsewhere.

Situation above, there is no coin flip because no showdown happens.

RickAversion said:

Zorba, good point, but at best, you've got a 60/40 edge against any 2 cards.
I prefer better odds, like shoving when I have a very strong hand.

Click to expand...

Shoving at 200nl will most times only get you the blinds or a call by someone with a strong hand and you risk either winning the blinds only or getting stacked by a strong hand.

I'm not a fan of shoving with strong hands, only time I do it is if there are more than 1 limpers into the pot, or if someone makes a raise and I am holding AA or KK, you want to build up the pot with strong hands.




.



.

Not when I have a stronger hand!

Ok, so with AK, I don't just call, I need to 3-BET BIG and scare him off the pot.

RickAversion said:

Ok, so with AK, I don't just call, I need to 3-BET BIG and scare him off the pot.

Click to expand...

Uh uh. With AK you're raising because you are almost always ahead of his range. You want to build pots where you likely have the best hand and you want to lay yourself odds when you don't. You're not raising to scare anyone away, raising with AK isn't a bluff, it's a value bet. You want hands like AQ, AJ or suited connectors to call not fold. Sure you want pairs to fold but it's always better if they do it after they've called a 3 bet.

If you don't want to bloat the pot then just call but unless something really unusual happens you can't just fold to a continuation bet. But it's really just so much easier to 3Bet and see what happens. They will probably call with their entire range and check/fold the flop. They will rarely stick around long with total air or bricks. When they do you'll just have to reevaluate.

It depends. You're not obligated to bust out with AK just because you're dealt it. But if there are some flat calls, then I'd attack the dead money by 3-betting with the intent of calling a shove or shoving over the top if I get 4-bet. .

If he flats and you miss (as you do 100% of the time late stage in tournaments with Ace-King, of course), then I would decide if I want to c-bet, if I have acceptable equity. If I do get called, I assign him a rough hand range, and decide on what turn cards I'll continue and which ones I'll give up on in about 5 seconds. If I saw him fold to a second barrel before, etc, I'd lean more toward barreling and representing Aces or Kings, whereas if he folded to c-bets 100% of the time before, but for some reason called mine, I'm probably giving up - I just hope that my read is good enough.

I don't completely gree with Four Dogs. You want to end the hand right there. If you're not running good, AK will be outflopped by dominated hands despite being such a big favorite preflop. The flop comes queen high, you think great, that's my scare card, I'll represent that - and then you're betting into Ace-Queen and drawing nearly dead. Same with Jack-high flops - you're betting into AJ. Obviously those hands are never folding.

CactusCat said:

It depends. You're not obligated to bust out with AK just because you're dealt it. But if there are some flat calls, then I'd attack the dead money by 3-betting with the intent of calling a shove or shoving over the top if I get 4-bet. .

If he flats and you miss (as you do 100% of the time late stage in tournaments with Ace-King, of course), then I would decide if I want to c-bet, if I have acceptable equity. If I do get called, I assign him a rough hand range, and decide on what turn cards I'll continue and which ones I'll give up on in about 5 seconds. If I saw him fold to a second barrel before, etc, I'd lean more toward barreling and representing Aces or Kings, whereas if he folded to c-bets 100% of the time before, but for some reason called mine, I'm probably giving up - I just hope that my read is good enough.

I don't completely gree with Four Dogs. You want to end the hand right there. If you're not running good, AK will be outflopped by dominated hands despite being such a big favorite preflop. The flop comes queen high, you think great, that's my scare card, I'll represent that - and then you're betting into Ace-Queen and drawing nearly dead. Same with Jack-high flops - you're betting into AJ. Obviously those hands are never folding.

Click to expand...

This is a cash game, not a tournament.

Agree with zorba, hoodookoo and other regs on this one. By playing too conservative, you'll end up being exploited by good players. Also, you'll be breaking even in the long run by not taking these so called coin flips. The only hand that surely beat you is AA and KK will be favorite against you. You have some good equity with QQ and below. You can fold AK in 3 bet or 4 bet pot preflop with a nitty player. Of course, it was your gut feel as of for that moment but we are saying that you don't fold AK without a good read. Cheers!

CactusCat said:

It depends. You're not obligated to bust out with AK just because you're dealt it. But if there are some flat calls, then I'd attack the dead money by 3-betting with the intent of calling a shove or shoving over the top if I get 4-bet. .

If he flats and you miss (as you do 100% of the time late stage in tournaments with Ace-King, of course), then I would decide if I want to c-bet, if I have acceptable equity. If I do get called, I assign him a rough hand range, and decide on what turn cards I'll continue and which ones I'll give up on in about 5 seconds. If I saw him fold to a second barrel before, etc, I'd lean more toward barreling and representing Aces or Kings, whereas if he folded to c-bets 100% of the time before, but for some reason called mine, I'm probably giving up - I just hope that my read is good enough.

I don't completely gree with Four Dogs. You want to end the hand right there. If you're not running good, AK will be outflopped by dominated hands despite being such a big favorite preflop. The flop comes queen high, you think great, that's my scare card, I'll represent that - and then you're betting into Ace-Queen and drawing nearly dead. Same with Jack-high flops - you're betting into AJ. Obviously those hands are never folding.

Click to expand...

I wanted to reply to this a little more in depth earlier but I was in a rush. Sorry Cactus but I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle. You seem to have a somewhat fatalist approach to the poker which might be hurting your game as evidenced by such statements as:

"You're not obligated to bust out with AK"
Or to double up with it.

"If he flats and you miss (as you do 100% of the time late stage in tournaments with Ace-King"
Really?

"If you're not running good, AK will be outflopped by dominated hands despite being such a big favorite preflop"
This is pure superstition. Running good or bad is just a function of variance and plays no roll in how often you'll get outflopped.

"The flop comes queen high, you think great, that's my scare card, I'll represent that - and then you're betting into Ace-Queen and drawing nearly dead. Same with Jack-high flops - you're betting into AJ. Obviously those hands are never folding."

So if a Queen flops he has one, and if a Jack flops he has that too. The cards are supposed to scare him, not you.

Of course all of these statements are possible but none are based on any information that you the player has gleaned from the hand. It's fine to be cautious and on the lookout for danger but you have to make decisions based on what you know, not what you fear.

God knows there are times when I feel like every decision I make at the table is doomed to failure. It's so easy to dwell on the negative and yes, if you don't clear your head it will effect your play but it's important to maintain perspective. I hope I'm not sounding trollish, it's not my intent. I'd love to continue this conversation here or in another thread if you like.

Cheers

I know it's variance, but consistently missing or getting reverse-dominated, losing coinflips, or crushed vs. undercards in crucial points in tournaments distorts my view of it (in tourneys, not cash games). So I sympathize with the original poster.

The last time I played AK in a tourney, I got it all in as a bigstack against another bigstack who got in raising war with me... I decide enough is enough, go all in... then he tank-calls with 47 offsuit and busts me. Had he lost, he would have been left with <1000 chips. I truly believe I would have taken the whole thing down had I won that all-in. AK has gotten me crippled preflop against literally any two cards, again and again and again and again. It's cost me a few hundred bucks by now.

The examples vs. AQ and AJ was when I got called down (or sometimes checked down after the turn) and reached showdown, and saw that I was indeed lost the 3:1 favorite hand. If it had come Ace-high, I'd double up each time, but no. I'm not even mad - just glad I didn't triple barrel all in and at least AK spared me some of my stack.

The last decent outcome I had with AK was flat-calling preflop, folding when I missed, and losing a few big blinds. I told myself "I'm not letting this ****ing hand undo the three hours I've invested getting this far". An orbit or so later I picked up Kings and doubled up - that's a hand I'm obviously willing to put my tourney life on.

The thing is, I absolutely agree with you. It is a premium hand, and I know it's all variance. I move on to the next tournament, and still play Ace King aggressively. So I 3-bet, call the 4-bet shove, and same old story. So I guess it's a byproduct of negative reinforcement - everytime I refuse to play scared money and decide to "play to win, and not playing not to lose", AK punishes me and I get slaughtered by AQ or any two cards.

Plus the times it's a coinflip, but I'm not mad at losing those because the better hand won, as is supposed to happen. I just wish it worked out for me when I have the best hand.

I don't play tourneys that often, but I'd still play it aggressively and hope for a better outcome regardless of the past bad beats. If I Do double up, then I'm always positioned to make a deep run.

In cash games, it's an amazing hand since you're not pressured by the rising blinds and antes, and you can afford to wait for the spot where AK specializes in - flopping top pair against AQ or KQ, and stacking them.

CactusCat said:

I know it's variance, but consistently missing or getting reverse-dominated, losing coinflips, or crushed vs. undercards in crucial points in tournaments distorts my view of it (in tourneys, not cash games). So I sympathize with the original poster.

The last time I played AK in a tourney, I got it all in as a bigstack against another bigstack who got in raising war with me... I decide enough is enough, go all in... then he tank-calls with 47 offsuit and busts me. Had he lost, he would have been left with <1000 chips. AK has gotten me crippled preflop against literally any two cards, again and again and again and again.

The examples vs. AQ and AJ was when I got called down (or sometimes checked down after the turn) and reached showdown, and saw that I was indeed outflopped. I'm not even mad - just glad I didn't triple barrel all in and at least AK spared me some of my stack.

The last decent outcome I had with AK was flat-calling preflop, folding when I missed, and losing a few big blinds. I told myself "I'm not letting this ****ing hand undo the three hours I've invested getting this far". An orbit or so later I picked up Kings and doubled up - that's a hand I'm obviously willing to put my tourney life on.

The thing is, I absolutely agree with you. It is a premium hand, and I know it's all variance. I move on to the next tournament, and still play Ace King aggressively. So I 3-bet, call the 4-bet shove, and I'm done. So I guess it's a byproduct of negative reinforcement - everytime I refuse to play scared money and decide to "play to win, and not playing not to lose", AK punishes me and I get slaughtered by AQ or any two cards.

Plus the times it's a coinflip, but I'm not mad at losing those because the better hand won, as is supposed to happen. I just wish it worked out for me when I have the best hand.

I don't play tourneys that often, but I'd still play it aggressively and hope for a better outcome regardless of the past bad beats. If I Do double up, then I'm always positioned to make a deep run.

In cash games, it's an amazing hand since you're not pressured by the rising blinds and antes, and you can afford to wait for the spot where AK specializes in - flopping top pair against AQ or KQ, and stacking them.

Click to expand...

Cactus, I totally get it, it's called tilt and I feel that way too sometimes, right now actually. But not so deep down you know it's not right and you can't let it influence your decision making, not in tournaments, not in cash games. Folding premium hands in certain situations based on table dynamics is understandable. Folding because your snake bit is hurting your game.