AK?

Hello,
As a player when you are dealt A K you over estimate this hand. You bet high before the flop but the flop usaully doesn't help. While your oppenent(s) hands are getting better you are stuck with Ace high. So play responsible and dont fall in love with it to much.

So what you are saying is that the only hands worth raising is AA since that is about the only hand that can't get into lots of trouble on the flop? You raise to isolate and reduce the number of callers. The hand is a coin flip at against any hand minus AA or KK, that is powerful in my book.

As far as your oppenets hands getting better and you are stuck with A high, that is exactly why you raise. You don't want that BB seeing a flop with 64 and catching two pair when little cards come on the flop. Poker is as much about aggression as it is about cards. AK allows you to be aggressive since you most often have the best hand when it does hit.

I agree that you don't want to fall in love with post flop when it doesn't hit but there are worse hands to play.

DoubleteamedDogs said:

Hello,
As a player when you are dealt A K you over estimate this hand. You bet high before the flop but the flop usaully doesn't help. While your oppenent(s) hands are getting better you are stuck with Ace high. So play responsible and dont fall in love with it to much.

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Damn dude you are a fking genius

A, K is meant to raise big with and hopefully get only one caller and the odds are usually in your favor or you can steal the blinds. It's not exactly a hand you hang on to unless you have a draw or caught a pair of Aces.

You raise pre-flop pretty hard for the times when A,K Doesn't pay off. Not extremely hard to cripple yourself cause some donk like the 6,7 does hit his 2 pair or the flush. Cause if no flushes are showing.. yeah you have 6 cards but now it is 24% to hit on the turn.. and 12% on the river.

I can see your point as that is one of my least favorite hands, but if you are crazy enough to play the hand without a raise then you deserve to lose.

Most people on this site understand the concept of not falling in love with a hand, as we all know any hand is beatable after the flop

g/l

DoubleteamedDogs said:

Hello,
As a player when you are dealt A K you over estimate this hand. You bet high before the flop but the flop usaully doesn't help. While your oppenent(s) hands are getting better you are stuck with Ace high. So play responsible and dont fall in love with it to much.

Click to expand...

Good advice for the ABSOLUTE BEGINNER who may put all their money in the pot POST FLOP just because they have AK (I've seen people do this with an obvious set or flush on the board....I say obvious from the betting pattern)

But once you get a handle of how Holdem works it can be the best hand to have PRE-FLOP especially against a short stacked fish holding a AQ,AJ,orA/10.

How I play AK

When I play Big Slick I play it carefully.

There are a lot loose players when you play online, that will call you all the way down with middle pairs. Sure, A-K is a monster hand and yes you should play it aggressively. But all too often I see players lose their entire stack playing A-K too aggressive. They think this hand in invincible, so they push all their chips to middle only to be taken out by pocket 7’s.



I want to play it aggressively but not stupidly. I need to find out where I am in the hand and challenge the raiser to see how strong he really is.

So, I want to put out a big bet or re-raise the raiser.

Some of you might of just call a raiser. Let me tell me why I re-raise.

This is a “feeler bet” so now I can get a more accurate read on what they are holding.

If they just CALL my re-raise, I probably have the best hand. If one of them has KK or AA, they’re more likely to go back over the top of me with a larger raise or an all-in.

Right now the raiser has control of the betting. But I want CONTROL of the betting. My re-raise does that.

And because I have control of the betting my opponents are likely to check to me on the flop, regardless of what hits. Because they will anticipate another bet from me. A strong player will follow his pre-flop raise with a post-flop bet.

IF the flop is a pile of rags that's not good but it's ok too.

He doesn’t know I’m holding Big Slick. Because of my re-raise before the flop, he’s got to put me on a much bigger hand..Q’s, K’s or A’s.

So Now if he checks to me, I can pretty much assume I’m out front. If he check-raises or bets then it may be time to mucked it and minimize my losses.

But he does check.

Then I can “represent” the wired pair with a big bet.

I also want to take the pot right here! So I bet half the pot.
He mucks his hands and I win the pot with Ace high.

Now if he would of called my bet, I would of mucked it right there. You got to think you have a very loose guy here with some kind of small pair. Or even worse he may just have caught trips!

You don’t want your entire night decided over A-K. You have to able to lay it down. I have many times..and will do it again many more times.

So that's how I typically play Big Slick.