The old AK conundrum

MrFold

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The scenario: MTT, starting chips 1500. You've played tight, been dealt mainly trash hands, tried to see a few flops cheaply, but missed them. Tried a couple of bluffs but they have not paid off. The blinds are now 25/50 and your stack is down to 1250.

Up pops Ac Ks and you're under the gun. You bet 3 x the big blind (150 chips). It's a full table of 10 players. Two others call your bet and the big blind does too.

Pot is 625. Flop comes Qh 10h 4d. Big blind checks. You want to show strength and put in a pot-sized continuation bet - 625. Two other players fold, but the big blind then raises your bet to 900.

Pot is now 2150 and you have 475 chips left. What do you do?

Fold and you've lost most of your stack to what might be a pretty cute bluff.

Call and the next card could pay you off big time - or you could find yourself committed to going all-in with ace high.

Don't you just love AK?


:cool:
 
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jewboy07

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how can he raise to 900 if you bet 625?

fwiw i probably dont even c-bet that board into 3 people
 
KardKlub

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A c-bet of 1/2 of the pot would have done the job if you were ahead after the flop. Why risk more of your stack when you essential have nothing.

C- bets come in handy when you finally do hit the flop and people just don't believe you hit it again!.

But not required as much when your short stacked against the pot. You still need to leave yourself with a decent stack for when you do hit a hand.
 
aliengenius

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C-betting into multiple players on a flop with two broadway cards that you missed is pretty horrible...
 
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Skidmark

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and a pot size cbet of 625 leaving you only 425 is bad imo. What were you thinking u cant even 2nd barrell efectively to force them fold if called on the flop.
 
absoluthamm

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At that point, you pretty much have to call because of what you already did. You essentially committed yourself to the pot and you are getting great pot odds, 4.5:1(if that pot size is correct), so now you have to call.

Bad move making the continuation bet into 3 players, and it was way too high, should have been about 1/2 the pot.
 
MrFold

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Agreed. I didn't actually play it this way. I was looking for reactions to this type of play - it's a theoretical hand. I now know exactly what not to do in this situation! Thanks for your comments.
 
absoluthamm

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No problem. Hopefully some of the info helped for the future.
 
aliengenius

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AK derives its profitability from PREflop equity:


I posted these thoughts in another thread, but I think they are worth repeating here:

The advantages of AK are mostly in it's preflop value:

1. Fold equity. This is the biggest advantage of AK. For me it is almost alway a REraising hand preflop. For you to take advantage of this, you MUST play it aggressively (your opponent must fold). Small pairs can't really call you for fear that you have a bigger pair when you play it aggressively. If you do get called, even by something like QQ, you are still only a slight dog.

2. Pre-flop dominating hand. This is mostly applicable against donks who will call you with Ax soooooded. Inversely, you are only really dominated vs AA or KK (and you have about 30% vs KK).

3. Post flop your top pair always has top kicker when you hit.

Obviously when your opponent goes all in he has neutralized AK's biggest advantage as he can no longer fold. Against two random cards that don't include either and ace or a king you are not that big of a favorite with five to come, as other posters pointed out. But you don't ever really want to be calling an all in with very many hands (AA and KK excepted)-- YOU want to be the one doing the raising or pushing.

Just to look at it another way, let's compare AK to a small pair, say 55.

AK is a dominating hand. IF your raise is called you are (most likely) either:

1. way ahead (vs. a weaker ace)
OR
2. in a 50/50ish race.

With 55 you are (most likely) either:

1. way behind (vs. a bigger pair)
OR
2. in a 50/50ish race.

See the difference?
 
zek

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In a 1500 starting chip MTT in that situation why not just go all-in and hope for a race? It's always nice to get a call from AQ. I'd be far less likely to do that in a 3000 or 5000 starting stack tournament, but in the 1500's you just pick a hand and go since you're not likely to get many premium hands.

-Raymond
 
lcid86

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should you fire a c-bet in the original scenario? If so, how much?
 
TheUndertaker

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You have no choice but to call in my opinion because you already have so much in the pot and I would call because you have a good chance of hitting and A K or J on the river or turn.by the way you should have bet so much on the flop.
 
T

thepokerjunky

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i just did the calculations... and i gotta say its not nice for you. It would
seem that your opponent either made 2 pair, queen and T, or had ace
queen. If it were ace queen, you would have 8 outs, the kings or the jacks,
if it were Q T, then you would have only 4 outs... Considering that your
opponent has one of those 2 hands i based my following conclusion:
by you raising allin, your opponent would have to pay 200 chips more,
so the total pot would be 2825... - 475 = 2350, so the pot odds are
475 to 2350, which is 1 - 4.95, and then you look at the odds of you
catching.. considering that you opponent has one of the 2 hands mentioned
previously, we can conclude that he has none of your outs... then
considereing that it is twice as probable that he has Ace Queen instead
of Ace Ten, Assuming it to be twice, we would calculate the average
amount of outs relative to the proportion of the chance that its either one
of those two hands.. so 4 outs divided by 3 times 1 = 1.33, and 8 divided
by 3 then times 2 = 5.33.. add the two and you have 6.66 which is the
probable amount of outs you have. now consider that the amount of cards
left in the deck that arnt those outs = 52 - 6.66 - 2(your 2 cards)- 4(board)
- 2(your opponents 2 cards which are either QT or AQ).. and you get
37.33... your odds of winning are 6.66 to 37.33.. which is about 1 two 5.61
now you multiply the 5.61 times the one of the last equation, and the 1 from
this equation with the 4.95 of the last equation... and the result sais:
4.95 to 5.61... thats the ratio of wins to losses, so youll lose more than you
will win most of the time by calling... its not soo far away but any tiny bit
is enough of a reason to not take the chance. Hope i helped :).
 
MrFold

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Yes, you really helped! Thanks for working all that out - very impressive.

:)

And thanks to everybody else who commented on this thread. It was interesting to get such in-depth feedback.

:cool:
 
F

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I might catch a lot of hell for this, but I believe AK is actually a pretty weak hand. Here's why: AK is nothing more than two unpaired cards. Yes, they are the highest unpaired cards possible but they're still just two unpaired cards. And keep in mind, that the odds of you flopping NOTHING with two unpaired cards is 71%! So you're a big underdog right from the get-go, considering you do see the flop. AK is a solid hand pre-flop but post-flop it's a very weak hand unless the flop has Aces or Kings in it (with no straight or flush or trip possibilities).

That's why I believe the most profitable way to play big slick is to be extremely aggressive pre-flop by raising and re-raising your opponents, and looking for them to throw away their hand (whether they have low/mid pairs, AQ, KJ, etc). AK can be profitable in late-stage tournaments where you can pick up the blinds and antes with aggressive raises and re-raises PRE-FLOP.

When you do see the flop, and you see a friendly board (one with an Ace/King in it, low cards) and nothing scary (no straight, no flush, no trip possibility) that's when you can be aggressive and bet 1xP, 1.5xP or even 2xP. But it really depends how many hands are in the pot, and most importantly your position.

If you're playing against one other player and you're the first to act, and there's already a large pot that was accumulated pre-flop then I would take a stab at it with 1/2xP or 3/4xP, even if you didn't connect, hoping that the other guy didn't connect either. At this point, you're going to face one of two things: he's either going to fold and congrats you just took down a pot with big slick or you're going to face resistance. How much resistance will determine your action going-forward. If he re-raises you or goes all-in, he probably has a hand and you're just going to have to swallow a bitter pill and fold your hands (and come to the realization that AK is overrated to begin with). Or you think he's bluffing and you call.

But what you don't do is bet pot-size when you have absolutely nothing, you're out-of-position and you have 4 other players in the pot with you. That's the very definition of suicidal poker.

My bottom line: AK is nothing more than two high unpaired cards. They're strong pre-flop but post-flop they can either win you a lot of money if you hit or cost you a bunch of chips (or your tournament) if you try to be a hero and steal with nothing more than two high unpaired cards.
 
F

FlexNYC

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PS The right way to play AK in your situation (under the gun, dwindling chip stack in a MTT with the blinds charging in) is to do a MIN-RAISE and not 3xBB which at that point represents 12% of your stacks. Min-Raise in this case is appropriate because it signals to your opponents that you have a hand, but you're not committing yourself to a pot with nothing more than A high.

If you connect with AK on the flop then you can take down a large pot and you're back in the game. If you don't connect, no big deal, you only min-raised and you can wait until you actually hit a monster hand.
 
trucker103

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its funny how this subject was here seein for the last 3 days ive probably lost 25 hands of ak the last one was today ak against kq and the flop is 3 queens crazy but enjoyed reading the thread .
 
F

FlexNYC

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Not surprised Trucker--AK is truly over-rated. As I said, it's nothing more than two unpaired cards. GL next time
 
MrFold

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Thanks for the tip, Flex. Min raise is a good idea. I've either been 3xBB-ing it or trying to limp in. Neither tactic has been very successful. With 3xBB, you're over-committing yourself to the hand. With a limp, your opponent raising puts you in a tricky position. Min raise here I come.
 
F

FlexNYC

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Sure thing Fold. I just played this hand in a MTT. Early stage. I had big slick, min raised and ended up taking the pot against a short stack who had 8K; we both flopped kings but my higher kicker kicked his ass, and sent him home packing. Donk went all in with K8.





pokerstars Game #26592255086: Tournament #150908669, $2.00+$0.20 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2009/03/31 21:58:06 ET
Table '150908669 260' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: WarChinchila (4575 in chips)
Seat 2: 00POKERFAN00 (1800 in chips)
Seat 3: punched44 (2690 in chips)
Seat 4: Tobsen001 (3755 in chips)
Seat 5: Babby Jack (11445 in chips)
Seat 6: FLEX NYC7 (3455 in chips)

Tobsen001: posts small blind 25
Babby Jack: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FLEX NYC7 [As Kc]
FLEX NYC7: raises 50 to 100
(Notice the min raise here)
WarChinchila: folds
00POKERFAN00: calls 100
punched44: folds
Tobsen001 has timed out
Tobsen001: folds
Tobsen001 is sitting out
Babby Jack: calls 50
*** FLOP *** [4d Ks Ts] (Flopped top pair with top kicker)
Babby Jack: checks
FLEX NYC7: bets 120 (I bet 0.33xP)
00POKERFAN00: calls 120
Babby Jack: folds
*** TURN *** [4d Ks Ts] Q♣ (Backdoor Straight draw possibility)
FLEX NYC7: bets 600 (I bet a healthy amount to get rid of any chasers)
00POKERFAN00: raises 980 to 1580 and is all-in (Donk goes all-in)
FLEX NYC7: calls 980 (I call. Note: under different circumstances I might have folded because it's a scary board; but I was against short-stack so it was very obvious he was trying to bully me out of the pot, and I'm not having any of it)
*** RIVER *** [4d Ks Ts Qc] 7♣ (River is inconsequential)
*** SHOW DOWN ***
FLEX NYC7: shows [As Kc] (a pair of Kings) (My KINGS are BETTER!)
00POKERFAN00: shows [Kd 8h] (a pair of Kings - lower kicker)
FLEX NYC7 collected 3725 from pot (BIG SLICK PAYS OFF)
 
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F

Fireblade

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Would anyone hate me for saying you should push all in preflop?

AK has some interesting properties as stated in No Limit book by Sklansky
One of the concepts he teaches is to push with AK is often the right move.

Most likely you will take the blind anyway this early in a tournament.
 
C

chigal

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Went out w/ AKo in quick succession in 2 3-table sngs tonight, one reraising
a 3 bet all in she called w/ A2o and got a pair of 2s, and the other I was short-stacked in bb and called a raise from the sb, who had AT suited, he flushed. Not unhappy with these plays but I am becoming all too aware that this hand will often lose post flop. Only positive is in both we were post bubble and in the money :)

Good blog and advice given. Thanks.
 
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