Getting sick of AK

Is this the right call.
In a 1000 plus person MTT last week. Im right at the Average stack for the tournament with probably around 20 BB's, about half the field left. I got AK offsuit in mid position and raised it about 3.5BB. Folded to BB who had nearly same stack as me and pushed all in. (Big Blind had been playing somewhat of a TAG strategy, not too aggressive but not a mouse either) I called and he showed Jacks and my hand didnt improve.
I know there are times that AK is a no Brainer call but was this one of them or should Ive gotten away from it?

Hi,

first of all, why you raise to 3.5xBB ? I prefer raising smaller, like 2.5xBB or at most 3xBB. You will save chips anytime you have to fold to a raise or if you want to give up your hand on the flop.

Then I think it depends a lot on your opponent, if you should call AK here or not.

And you have to take a look at the odds, of course..

lets say stacks are both 20BB .. You raise to 3.5 (= 5BB in the pot [Raise+SB+BB]) and the BB shoves for 19BB more (plus his BB its 20).

Now there are 24BB in the pot and you have to put in 16.5BB more ..

You dont even get 2:1 so you shouldnt search for a flip here.. And if you think your AK will flip against that opponent its an obvious fold imo!

Just look for a better opportunity to get your chips into the middle imo.

16.5BB is still a playable stack (and if you only raised to 2.5BB you could have 17.5BB here )

It's all about playing styles. Some people like small ball and some like agressive styles, there is no one correct way to play.

I like big bets for big hands. Why would you leave money on the table when you have a big hand and why would you go into a hand expecting to lay it down?

Of course, it depends on your "style"..

But its a very weak style imo to bet big with big hands and bet small with small hands..

You dont have to be a genius to find out how strong your hand is as your opponent..

I would just fold to your big bets and raise your small ones.. too easy..

imo you should stick to a betsize, to hide the strength of your hand

You have to go with your reads and the math here. Exact stack sizes would help here with the math. What range of hands would you put BB on here given what you saw him play?

AKo has to get lucky against all pocket pairs 22-QQ which it will a bit less than 1/2 the time (55-45) and will be 80-20 dog against AA/KK. Obviously AKo is a big favorite against Ax & Kx hands but only a 60-40 favorite against middle connector hands.

So if you can put the BB on a range that includes a lot of Ax,Kx hands then you call the BB shove. If you can only put BB on a range that is dominated by high pairs then you probably aren't getting the pot odds to make the call.

i also hate this hand, i woulda play it like u did, i think u played it right, when it coms to more than 1 k players, u need a little luck on ur side, and that means that u have to win some coinflips. better luck next time

Of course this goes w/o saying. 3.5xBB is a 'standard' size for initial bets in unopened pots. NC didn't say that his 3.5xBB was any diff than his normal opening (which he should say if it was).

Now for me, since I only raise 'big hands' all my bets are 3.5xBB (+1 BB for limpers of course) so it makes no diff if UTG I have AA or JTs You won't know which it is based on my 3.5xBB raise.

It depends on stack size.. If you were short stacked then its a call. If you were deep its a fold.

I only meant you in that posting ;p

your comment "I like big bets for big hands." looked like you would bet big hands big, and weak hands not that big. Got that wrong I guess

You played it right, it just didn't hit. THis is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. Of course folding here is OK as AKo is not a made hand. You lost this race, better luck next time!!
Peace,
FLOW

Nothing wrong with that play, its just how it goes. Sure you could fold there but when he turned over jacks its gotta be about what you expected. Dont get too down I am 0 for my last four with aces at Full tilt.

First...Bet 3x BB if you raise.

Second...It's a good call. With AK you always (except AA & KK) get a flip or more.
With the JJ of your opponent get this flip and lose. That's poker. (Hate to say that) But the play was a good one.
Better luck next time...

Not really.

Against a made pair.. even 22 AK is behind.

Against a high pair TT+ its about 60:40 against.

The issue of stack sizes is important because you have to decide if the guy is shoving with a made pair or not. Large stacks its not a good play. Short stacks, the villain's range opens up and includes a lot of non-made pairs.. then AK creeps to a flip.

Its better to be the one shoving with AK than to be the one calling IMO because you can fold out many made pairs with the shove. If called you are slightly behind but have good outs.

When calling a shove you obviously do not have any fold equity and are therefore relying on hitting an out, and wll often find yourself slightly behind.

This would be a situation where I would mostly rely on my opponents previous patters.

If he has the cajones to do this with a subpar hand then I would probably make the call. On the other hand if he usually only does this with pockets or premiums I would mutter under my breath and toss it.

I must admit though, sometime in these situation I will simply call and hope for the best. Sometimes I get drawn into the "go big or go home" mindset. That in itself is a coin flip

for me, it depends on the reads I have on the table and my position whenI get AK, then that will dictate the size of my raise and if I will fold to a big reraise,,
if I have no reads at the table, I would prob do a standard 3x raise(which is what I do with most raises, to keep from creating tells on myself)
but I do feel it is a hand that can be folded to big reraises.
especially at certain points in a tourney,
but when ur short,, I would prob go with it
GL

Personally I would have went allin pre flop with AK. If somebody calls, you most likely will have them beat. If everybody folds you still take down the pot. Some chips are better than no chips.

I agree with alot of what you're saying here... BUT,.. he's only got a 20bb stack. This isn't a particularly large stack and in actuality he's sitting on what 10M or less if antes in play??
He's also picking up the blinds & antes, the dead money in the pot, so is getting better than 2 to 1 on the call. So.. I'd say it's a questionable call/fold situation. For myself it'd depend alot on what the play on the table has been like along with the skill level of my opponents (is it an uber aggress. table of regs., where I'm fortunate to get my stack in here most likely on a flip?.. or is it a weak/tight table where I'm going to have plenty of oppurtunities even though with my stack size being on the marginally smallish side will I have those oppurtunities?... depends on the table and my opponent of course).

In other words.. sometimes I'm folding this (and wishing I'd called).... alot of times I'm calling this (and wishing I'd let it go),lol.

Yeah, TBH I didnt realize that he had 20BB.. making him short stacked.

The only issue left is the size of the other guy's stack. If he is hovering around the 20BB mark too then its shor stack vs short stack so its a call.

If the villian had a deep stack 60BB+ in tournaments.. much much more in a cash game.. is would he choose to shove without that high pair. The deep stack should realise that shortstacks will call with most pairs and high aces so has to feel confident that he has those beat.

Basically if its against a deepstack.. the deepstack should have a made hand at this point... but then again the AK is correct to call as he is shortstacked...

Hell I'm talking myself out of the fold the more I type!!

i think we must consider the right answer in long run.what is the EV of AK unsuited under this situation.can anyone or software give the ev?

The only hand you are in front with is AQ (maybe AJs or KQ. but...). so at least you get a flip. If you are okay with going all in in the middle of the turnament with a flip or worse then you should call.
I would have fold by the way

you know your going to be in a coin flip your worst scenario unless he has AA or KK which is not likely and if he doesn't have a pocket pair you would be a 70% favorite so it comes down too if you wanted to get into a coin flip and i guess you did i would do the same thing because he could of had A ? and you would be strong

I have to agree with some of the above posters that calling an all-in with AKos against a SS opponent is the right, as most SS will be pushing Ax which you dominate and flipping against most PP.

As for getting sick of AKos, you cannot get sick of it.
I have been using the 90 day trial version of PT3(about 20 days left ) and out of the 78 times I have had AKos I have won around 75% of the hands and with-in the 25% of the hands that I did lose, only 2 of those 25% were all-in preflop coinflips, but then again, those 2 players were very loose players .

Just don't get sick of playing AKos, if you think you have a hard time playing AKos just use our search function to read past threads on AK, there are plenty out there.
This is my personal favorite which totally changed the way I played AK>>> Big Slick

I remember reading that when I used to get the Roy Rounder articles. A-K if played right will make you alot more than you'll lose. Problem is, we only remember the bad beats and not all the time we win with it.

This is one one of the reasons an online player should invest in HEM/PT3, just to help you remember how many times you win with a particular hand.

i use to have the same problem and then all the people on the sight had diffrent answers so i sought proffesional help for my answers at ftp they have a free academy that will teach you im not saying u need it but ive been playing for 29 years 18 of those in vegas and there academy helped me 100% i thought i knew it all so i cnat post a comment on what u should do depends on your style of play that was a big tourney and there are 2 diffrent ways you could of gone check out the academy they have challenges on early middle late withh all senarios.. Sorry if this didnt help.

I also struggle a little in these situations but what I believe it boils down to is your overall standing in the tournament and your reads (if you have them) on other players.

If you are short stacked less than 10M (as you probably were depending on antes) then you ought to at least raise most probably shove.

If you are mid placed overall (as you were) you are going to need to start accumulating chips in order to cash let alone win and if you fold here you will look back and may be regret it.

I watched a lot of the EPT final table this w/e and remember a similar situation. 8 players left - early position raises 25,000 (2.5BBs) with TT (3rd ranked overall), big blind (7th ranked overall) raises to 90,000 with AKo - early position pushes all-in and has the BB covered. BB calls another 500K and hits winning the pot. Eventually the BB went on to finish 2nd $750K, if he folds here and doesn't get any more playable hands he finishes 8th about $100K and looks back and says what if I had called with AK.

So IMO you did right.

your middle position and the rapidly increasing blinds and antes make it a very difficult hand to play and especially against a tight aggressive player, the best thing to do out of position is to just call, it may be passive but somethings you have to mix your game up a bit other wise you will have everyone avoiding you when you have the right cards, AA, KK but not QQ or JJ out of position, that is my personal rule for middle to the final stage

well it depends on how big the blinds are
you were in mid position right, so if the blinds were 150-300 say
i would probably call but if the blinds were like 5-10 i might fold

AK is one of those hands that always looks good but isn't really.
As many others have already said, you are behind to ANY pair and a high pair (10+) makes you a bit of a dog.

All that being said, I might have made the same call as you if I thought he was making a play against me.

It really depends on how he has played up to this point

Good Luck out there

How far along were you in the tourney? From your wording it seems pretty far, so the all in with jacks seems completely crazy. While he was a slight favorite, he must have realized that going into it he would be in a coin flip (55/45).

I just don't get this. Complete donk move by him and he got lucky. I could see it if he thought he was a short stack, but come on.

Anyway, sometimes you just have to fold AK. The only times I would do it, however, is if a raise, reraise, all in are in front of me. Then I would back off, let the premium hand go and watch two people get eliminated. While it may give you the option of tripling/quadrupling up, the gamble isn't worth it. The maximum percentage you would have there is like 30%, definitely not enough to put your tournament life at risk.

Finally, as for the attacks on your raise of 3.5bb, I think this is a PERFECT raise. I think a 2.5 bb raise is stupid and appears like a min bet. It wouldn't get me off my hand in the BB if I had anything from J9 up.

In the end, it wasn't a bad move. Calling with a premium hand like that is a good move and if you had won it would have showed the table that you won't back down with your good hands, so don't go all in against you. It just sucks luck didn't go your way.

gl on and off the felts.

In this case, I think I would have just called the raise. You only have about 16 times the big blind; not great, but you're also not desperate either. There are certainly only a few hands that could have AKs dominated, and at this blind level compared to your stack, I can't really fault you for going all-in. Since he was the chip leader, he may have been trying to bully the table, maybe not. If I had a good read on the hand I may have done the same thing as you. I don't like a reraise to anything less than all-in because any significant reraise puts more than half of your chips in the pot and folding after the flop really cripples you. Without having any knowlege of play at the table, I probably would have tried to see the flop with a call, but I would say that going all-in is not a bad play at all, in my opinion.

Hi.

I've learned game after game that I just have really bad luck playing AK, AQ, KQ, so I don't raise more than anyone else.
I just have REALLY bad luck with those cards, true.

Anyway, I think you have bad luck, there's a lot of possibilities of win with your cards against a JJ.

Bye.
manalva

In this case you statistically should have called. If you already put in 3.5BB in the pot, and the pot by then would have been, im guessing 3.5BB + another 5BB for example... theres already a good 8.5BB in the pot, plus the 20BB he will push you allin with... Thats 28.5BB that you could win, plus your 20 that you push in.. which is 48.5BB... Ace king usually has a 47 % chance to a 53% i would say... and if you were to play 100 of the same hands hands, 47 of them would win ya 28.5BB while the other 53 will lose ya 20 BB... so your winnings would be roughly about (47X28.5) 1339.5BB, while you would lose only 1060BB... meaning in the long run, calling would let you gain 279.5BB in a period of 100 of those same hands... Yes you should have called!! hehe

I would have small raised x2 or x2.5. The push by the other guy I think means a reasonable pair or a bluff, but do I want to go out now? Easy to get away from this and stay alive in the tourney.