When to fold AK/AQ preflop?

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thomasguy3419

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Hi I was just wondering if you ever fold AK/AQ preflop in certain situations like facing a 2bet/3bet or folding these in early position or in the blinds?
 
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Alucard

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Depends on the player. I generally think AK is too good to fold but flatting is bad as well. So I'd usually 3 bet & fold to a 4 bet. Or even fold to a 3 bet Vs tight players.This is at the lowest levels where people are very tight with their ranges.
AQ is a fold most of the time.
As the stakes go up more bluffing & more loose ranges. So the situations change.
 
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Against loose-agg player who bets big with any premium hand, you must overplay the hand preflop and willingly coinflip it. You will be on upper end most times.

Against nits (whether more AG or P) you need to be cautious of any preflop aggression or calls to raises at all from them, so if you act later preflop to the very tight player and they've called a 3BB raise, raise it up to 6BB and see if they still want to engage, if they do you need to be cautious as they can be sitting on QQ KK for all you know.

Against more in-between players, this comes down to a little raw intuition to be frank. Are they the type of person who would raise big preflop with less than a high pocket pair or equal to you (AK, AQ)? Are they the type who'd range as low as J10 with a big preflop bet? You need to consider what they are feeling or thinking in the moment based on how they've acted so far on the table.

Last but not least, with a newly arrived player, pretty much this comes down to how much they bet preflop. If they are hardcore all-ining with anythign near max buyin I'd fold just because you don't know 2 things: firstly you have no clue if they jus thappened to flop AA or something, or Ak to your Aq and secondly you don't know if others acting after you preflop will be calling it meaning they have the AA KK etc. This COMBINED lack of knowledge asertains that folding here is quite a good idea just because you are risking a lot of chips with no information on the player's style or bet-size-interpretation (what is 'big' to them or 'small'). Even if you are SB or BB and others have all folded to this player, ask yourself why you are calling here, is it because you're scared to not profit from it? This is tournament thinking, there is no time pressure to play a premium hand to a huge bet in cash games it is only if the situations seems fairly certain to end with you on the upper end or not. Therefore, folding is still fine even in this case.
 
Stuey

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You got incorrect advise from all people here. AK is never fold to a raise. You re-raise so big that opponent has got to understand that he cannot have folding equity against you. He's got to be willing to call your big 3bet and play for stacks or fold. Now, with AQ off if you 2bet and get 3bet from a nit player you got to fold. If your AQ is suited you can limp with the intention of calling a 2bet and see the flop.

But to fold these two hands when some monkey sneezes at the pot is a massive mistake. If you are the first one in the pot from any position you come in for a raise. If you have limpers in front, you got to raise 4bb+1bb for each limper.
For example: 4 limpers ahead of you. You raise 4bb+4bb=8bb minimum raise. Why are we doing that? - Well, if they limped, our AK or AQ are absolutely much better hands vs. theirs limping trash range. We want to play our AK/AQ against their limping garbage. If you are on the button with AK/AQ and all the 6 fish ahead of you have limped, you raise 10bb, $20 for 1-2 game or $50 for 2-5 game.

You can do this play in the dark and still works. Even if you only look to one card a see an Ace or o King with some garbage as a second card and always raise the limpers, your one big card value is better then the entire limping monkey's range. (your A2o or K2o vs. fish's JTo is 55:45) You got an edge. You put each $50 in the pot and you take out $55, and this is with absolute garbage big card value only.
 
Keith_MM

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Against loose-agg player who bets big with any premium hand, you must overplay the hand preflop and willingly coinflip it. You will be on upper end most times.

pretty bad advice as a general reply to the op's question regarding AK and AQ
.if the LAG is betting big ( you don't even define what you mean by betting big) with any premium hand , AQ is going to be crushed and should certainly not be coin flipped.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 71.85% 70.71% 1.14% { JJ+, AKs, AKo }
MP3 28.15% 27.01% 1.14% { AQo }
flipping as a 7:3 dog is going to lose you a lot of money over time.

Against nits (whether more AG or P) you need to be cautious of any preflop aggression or calls to raises at all from them, so if you act later preflop to the very tight player and they've called a 3BB raise, raise it up to 6BB and see if they still want to engage, if they do you need to be cautious as they can be sitting on QQ KK for all you know.
3betting to 6BB is terrible betsizing as you give the NITs (or anyone else) the odds to set mine you . A NIT is certainly not going to call a 3bb raise , and then call a 3BB raise with QQ ,KK. they will have 3bet those hands initially themselves. so if you see a nit 3betting then you can safely lay down your AK,AQ. they are far more likely to show up with 22-TT and AQs,AJs,KQs in the situation you gave.
Against more in-between players, this comes down to a little raw intuition to be frank. Are they the type of person who would raise big preflop with less than a high pocket pair or equal to you (AK, AQ)? Are they the type who'd range as low as J10 with a big preflop bet? You need to consider what they are feeling or thinking in the moment based on how they've acted so far on the table.
Again "a big preflop bet" needs to be quantified, in the previous paragraph you were talking about 3bb and 6bb bets .The bigger the bet the stronger your hand needs to be to call or shove over.OP has been posting zoom table hands for analysis , so in that situation he will have no clue how the guy is feeling or thinking based on his recent activity as he won't have seen it and far less likely to have any reads on his ranges without using a HUD.
Last but not least, with a newly arrived player, pretty much this comes down to how much they bet preflop. If they are hardcore all-ining with anythign near max buyin I'd fold just because you don't know 2 things: firstly you have no clue if they jus thappened to flop AA or something, or Ak to your Aq and secondly you don't know if others acting after you preflop will be calling it meaning they have the AA KK etc. This COMBINED lack of knowledge asertains that folding here is quite a good idea just because you are risking a lot of chips with no information on the player's style or bet-size-interpretation (what is 'big' to them or 'small'). Even if you are SB or BB and others have all folded to this player, ask yourself why you are calling here, is it because you're scared to not profit from it?
Aboutthe only thing you got right here is that you have to consider how many people are still to act. SOmeone new to the table shoving first hand i would lay down AQ, and maybe AK dependent on stack size and give that initial shove respect. If he's continually shoving then i'm highly likely to be calling/reshoving(to deter any later deep stackedplayers from also calling) with both AK and AQ . i.e the guys who arrive on a table and shove 3 or first 5 hands , assume they are open shoving 60% and AQ is a 3:2 favourite

http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 36.82% 35.42% 1.40% { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T3s+, 95s+, 85s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A2o+, K2o+, Q5o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 87o }
MP3 63.18% 61.79% 1.40% { AQo }

even if opponent is open shoving 30% of hands its still an easy call.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 39.02% 36.71% 2.31% { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, A5o, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }
MP3 60.98% 58.67% 2.31% { AQo }

This is tournament thinking, there is no time pressure to play a premium hand to a huge bet in cash games it is only if the situations seems fairly certain to end with you on the upper end or not. Therefore, folding is still fine even in this case.
Rubbish , what you are advocating is losing players thinking. When you have the evidence that someone is shoving wide , and your hand has an advantage , you should have the bankroll to withstand the variance of calling these 60:40 situations. The more you play the more you'll win and your winrate will increase. In cash games you should be willing to take on these situations as there is no increased payout from avoiding flips by risking your tournaments life.

rational could always prove me wrong about him being a losing player by posting his cash game graphs.
 
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Alucard

Alucard

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You got incorrect advise from all people here. AK is never fold to a raise. You re-raise so big that opponent has got to understand that he cannot have folding equity against you. He's got to be willing to call your big 3bet and play for stacks or fold. Now, with AQ off if you 2bet and get 3bet from a nit player you got to fold. If your AQ is suited you can limp with the intention of calling a 2bet and see the flop.

He's playng 2/5Nl where a 4bet is never a bluff or a bad hand.
With 100BB effective stack if the V commits half of it why would you move any further if the player is half decent?

And again why would you ever limp a hand in a cash game & specially AQs?

Once again it depends on the player.
Generally AQs is in my 3bet calling range & AK in my 4betting range.
But against a 4bet at these stakes I'd fold both without any hesitation against a decent player.

And at zoom this gets tougher since many players are looking for monsters to play big pots.
 
R

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pretty bad advice as a general reply to the op's question regarding AK and AQ
.if the LAG is betting big ( you don't even define what you mean by betting big) with any premium hand , AQ is going to be crushed and should certainly not be coin flipped.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 71.85% 70.71% 1.14% { JJ+, AKs, AKo }
MP3 28.15% 27.01% 1.14% { AQo }
flipping as a 7:3 dog is going to lose you a lot of money over time.


3betting to 6BB is terrible betsizing as you give the NITs (or anyone else) the odds to set mine you . A NIT is certainly not going to call a 3bb raise , and then call a 3BB raise with QQ ,KK. they will have 3bet those hands initially themselves. so if you see a nit 3betting then you can safely lay down your AK,AQ. they are far more likely to show up with 22-TT and AQs,AJs,KQs in the situation you gave.
Again "a big preflop bet" needs to be quantified, in the previous paragraph you were talking about 3bb and 6bb bets .The bigger the bet the stronger your hand needs to be to call or shove over.OP has been posting zoom table hands for analysis , so in that situation he will have no clue how the guy is feeling or thinking based on his recent activity as he won't have seen it and far less likely to have any reads on his ranges without using a HUD.
Aboutthe only thing you got right here is that you have to consider how many people are still to act. SOmeone new to the table shoving first hand i would lay down AQ, and maybe AK dependent on stack size and give that initial shove respect. If he's continually shoving then i'm highly likely to be calling/reshoving(to deter any later deep stackedplayers from also calling) with both AK and AQ . i.e the guys who arrive on a table and shove 3 or first 5 hands , assume they are open shoving 60% and AQ is a 3:2 favourite

http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 36.82% 35.42% 1.40% { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T3s+, 95s+, 85s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A2o+, K2o+, Q5o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 87o }
MP3 63.18% 61.79% 1.40% { AQo }

even if opponent is open shoving 30% of hands its still an easy call.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 39.02% 36.71% 2.31% { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, A5o, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }
MP3 60.98% 58.67% 2.31% { AQo }


Rubbish , what you are advocating is losing players thinking. When you have the evidence that someone is shoving wide , and your hand has an advantage , you should have the bankroll to withstand the variance of calling these 60:40 situations. The more you play the more you'll win and your winrate will increase. In cash games you should be willing to take on these situations as there is no increased payout from avoiding flips by risking your tournaments life.

rational could always prove me wrong about him being a losing player by posting his cash game graphs.
I will supply graphs in couple of months when I am playing stakes to be proud of.

I am playing at baby level and forcing myself to rise to the top of every single poker site's free version starting with Zynga and ReplayPoker which has free-only but will do PS etc.

When I am making extremely good bankroll on all free ones I will move up from my microstake levle on the real money.

I am profiting in the real money micro but I haven't paid for the full version fo HM and my trial ran out. I don't like that hud nonsense so I'd be purely using it for graphs and to prove to you, which is waste of money for me.

I will pay for full version if and when I have earned enough to pay that amount (good goal to be honest).

I am not here on this Earth to be worshipped by others, that is for God or the aliens that control our fate. I am here to play my plays and if they work great for me.

You are a 19-tabling blind-better who doesn't understand the importance of only engaging people when you have secure reads on them to combine with the hand probability. The edge doesn't come from understand card probability, that is like 20% of your edge at best. The edge is from situation analysis. I won't argue with you, I know you think little of me and I know I made mistakes in that sit n go rampage I did on youtube.

I know all what you will say and think. I am not here to make you love me, sorry for you but you are just not my type.
 
Keith_MM

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I will supply graphs in couple of months when I am playing stakes to be proud of.

I am playing at baby level and forcing myself to rise to the top of every single poker site's free version starting with Zynga and ReplayPoker which has free-only but will do PS etc.
so you're playing play money poker?
When I am making extremely good bankroll on all free ones I will move up from my microstake levle on the real money.

I am profiting in the real money micro but I haven't paid for the full version fo HM and my trial ran out. I don't like that hud nonsense so I'd be purely using it for graphs and to prove to you, which is waste of money for me.

I will pay for full version if and when I have earned enough to pay that amount (good goal to be honest).
the "HUD nonsense" speaks volumes about how you approach poker.You really should learn to use a HUD to its fullest so that you can start to understand ranges that players are playing and then use that to develope hand reading skills.Most of the winning players at the micros will be doing that and if you don't use one you are at an instant disadvantage.
there are other hud programs giving 1 months free trial ,
  • pt4
  • hand2note
  • xeester
  • drivehud
  • jivaro
drivehud can be got for 9$ for a 1 year licence and a couple of the others are a similar price. Alternatively you can see if you can get on HM3 beta trial and have a free beta HUD software until it launches.
I am not here on this Earth to be worshipped by others, that is for God or the aliens that control our fate. I am here to play my plays and if they work great for me.
I suggest you keep them to yourself if you don't want winning players ripping those plays to shreds to prevent noobs from loosing money by following your advice.when you can prove that they work by posting winning graphs you will be able to counter our arguments , but as you've admitted you aren't beating cash games to stop playing play money.
You are a 19-tabling blind-better who doesn't understand the importance of only engaging people when you have secure reads on them to combine with the hand probability. The edge doesn't come from understand card probability, that is like 20% of your edge at best. The edge is from situation analysis. I won't argue with you, I know you think little of me and I know I made mistakes in that sit n go rampage I did on youtube.

I know all what you will say and think. I am not here to make you love me, sorry for you but you are just not my type.

thats where you are wrong , i usually play 4-6 tables but can easily mass multitable 2nl to prove a point. Situation analysis is typically called hand reading and its gonna come as a hell of a shock to you that a lot of it is based on work done off the table ,learning ranges that relate to various hud stats , working how much equity your hand has against typical ranges so that when you are playing you have an instinctive idea of how your hand fares when board texture and opponent hand range is taken into account.

I've never had to deposit building initially from freerolls and then posting regularly hand histories for feedback and learnt from the advice given.When you are regularly beating stakes above 2nl believeme you will look back at the bs you have been posting and be embarrassed about how many misconceptions you had .
 
R

Rational Madman

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so you're playing play money poker?
the "HUD nonsense" speaks volumes about how you approach poker.You really should learn to use a HUD to its fullest so that you can start to understand ranges that players are playing and then use that to develope hand reading skills.Most of the winning players at the micros will be doing that and if you don't use one you are at an instant disadvantage.
there are other hud programs giving 1 months free trial ,
  • pt4
  • hand2note
  • xeester
  • drivehud
  • jivaro
drivehud can be got for 9$ for a 1 year licence and a couple of the others are a similar price. Alternatively you can see if you can get on HM3 beta trial and have a free beta HUD software until it launches.

I suggest you keep them to yourself if you don't want winning players ripping those plays to shreds to prevent noobs from loosing money by following your advice.when you can prove that they work by posting winning graphs you will be able to counter our arguments , but as you've admitted you aren't beating cash games to stop playing play money.


thats where you are wrong , i usually play 4-6 tables but can easily mass multitable 2nl to prove a point. Situation analysis is typically called hand reading and its gonna come as a hell of a shock to you that a lot of it is based on work done off the table ,learning ranges that relate to various hud stats , working how much equity your hand has against typical ranges so that when you are playing you have an instinctive idea of how your hand fares when board texture and opponent hand range is taken into account.

I've never had to deposit building initially from freerolls and then posting regularly hand histories for feedback and learnt from the advice given.When you are regularly beating stakes above 2nl believeme you will look back at the bs you have been posting and be embarrassed about how many misconceptions you had .
 
MattRyder

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pretty bad advice as a general reply to the op's question regarding AK and AQ
.if the LAG is betting big ( you don't even define what you mean by betting big) with any premium hand , AQ is going to be crushed and should certainly not be coin flipped.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 71.85% 70.71% 1.14% { JJ+, AKs, AKo }
MP3 28.15% 27.01% 1.14% { AQo }
flipping as a 7:3 dog is going to lose you a lot of money over time.


3betting to 6BB is terrible betsizing as you give the NITs (or anyone else) the odds to set mine you . A NIT is certainly not going to call a 3bb raise , and then call a 3BB raise with QQ ,KK. they will have 3bet those hands initially themselves. so if you see a nit 3betting then you can safely lay down your AK,AQ. they are far more likely to show up with 22-TT and AQs,AJs,KQs in the situation you gave.
Again "a big preflop bet" needs to be quantified, in the previous paragraph you were talking about 3bb and 6bb bets .The bigger the bet the stronger your hand needs to be to call or shove over.OP has been posting zoom table hands for analysis , so in that situation he will have no clue how the guy is feeling or thinking based on his recent activity as he won't have seen it and far less likely to have any reads on his ranges without using a HUD.
Aboutthe only thing you got right here is that you have to consider how many people are still to act. SOmeone new to the table shoving first hand i would lay down AQ, and maybe AK dependent on stack size and give that initial shove respect. If he's continually shoving then i'm highly likely to be calling/reshoving(to deter any later deep stackedplayers from also calling) with both AK and AQ . i.e the guys who arrive on a table and shove 3 or first 5 hands , assume they are open shoving 60% and AQ is a 3:2 favourite

http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 36.82% 35.42% 1.40% { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T3s+, 95s+, 85s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A2o+, K2o+, Q5o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 87o }
MP3 63.18% 61.79% 1.40% { AQo }

even if opponent is open shoving 30% of hands its still an easy call.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 39.02% 36.71% 2.31% { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, A5o, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }
MP3 60.98% 58.67% 2.31% { AQo }


Rubbish , what you are advocating is losing players thinking. When you have the evidence that someone is shoving wide , and your hand has an advantage , you should have the bankroll to withstand the variance of calling these 60:40 situations. The more you play the more you'll win and your winrate will increase. In cash games you should be willing to take on these situations as there is no increased payout from avoiding flips by risking your tournaments life.

rational could always prove me wrong about him being a losing player by posting his cash game graphs.

Why all of the links to the PokerStrategy home page? Were these supposed to be to more specific pages on that site?
 
Keith_MM

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the equities are worked out on a program called equilab which was written by pokerstrategy . equilab has a copy as text button to copy the results it generates to the clipboard to make pasting the results to forums easier. couldn't be bothered to then delete the pokestrategy links out of the generated output.
 
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Keith_MM

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the irony is go back a couple of months and compare the progress of you and alucard .you probably had similar bankrolls at that stage. he's posted hands for criticism/advice ,listened to what he's been told , learnt from it , applied it to his play and now a couple of months later he's beaten 2nl and playing 5nl. No doubt in a couple of months he'll have beaten 5nl and moved up to 10nl and you'll still be so far up your own ego refusing to listen to advice that you'll be stuck playing play money and posting bs strategy advice .
 
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the irony is go back a couple of months and compare the progress of you and alucard .you probably had similar bankrolls at that stage. he's posted hands for criticism/advice ,listened to what he's been told , learnt from it , applied it to his play and now a couple of months later he's beaten 2nl and playing 5nl. No doubt in a couple of months he'll have beaten 5nl and moved up to 10nl and you'll still be so far up your own ego refusing to listen to advice that you'll be stuck playing play money and posting bs strategy advice .
You can tell the future can you?
 
ovitoo

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I am playing at baby level and forcing myself to rise to the top of every single poker site's free version starting with Zynga and ReplayPoker which has free-only but will do PS etc.

When I am making extremely good bankroll on all free ones I will move up from my microstake levle on the real money.

You realize play money doesn't constitute microstakes, it's actually no stake whatsoever. There is nothing at all to be learned from them except maybe the basics of 'how to play' poker.
 
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You realize play money doesn't constitute microstakes, it's actually no stake whatsoever. There is nothing at all to be learned from them except maybe the basics of 'how to play' poker.
I play up to the 4 cent bb in ps but not often.
 
Keith_MM

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pretty much shows that you don't as stars don't have any 4 cent bb games.
 
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pretty much shows that you don't as stars don't have any 4 cent bb games.
I am playing mainly 1/2 cent the next one up I played few times went back down as my winrate wasn't consistent enough yet there.
 
Serjo600

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when u vs 3 and more dudes in 3b pot
 
ankitantil

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I call all in in freerolls and raise in buy in games rarely call all in there.
 
MattRyder

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You realize play money doesn't constitute microstakes, it's actually no stake whatsoever. There is nothing at all to be learned from them except maybe the basics of 'how to play' poker.
You'd be surprised. There are a lot of frustrated US players on Stars playing play money games.
 
dj11

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Since this is in the cash game thread, I will want to see a flop with either AK or AQ. I understand these are both ONLY DRAWING hands, but unless I have some other read on a raiser before me, I will usually pay to see the flop.

Late in a tourney, if my stack is healthy, I can drop either AK, or AQ if it looks like a shorty or two will fight it out. I call that a popcorn moment.

But again, this is the cash game thread, not the tourney thread.
 
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If your some 4-bet from the position, and you are out of position, it's mandatory to throw it away.
 
Ahoy

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You got incorrect advise from all people here. AK is never fold to a raise. You re-raise so big that opponent has got to understand that he cannot have folding equity against you. He's got to be willing to call your big 3bet and play for stacks or fold. Now, with AQ off if you 2bet and get 3bet from a nit player you got to fold. If your AQ is suited you can limp with the intention of calling a 2bet and see the flop.

But to fold these two hands when some monkey sneezes at the pot is a massive mistake. If you are the first one in the pot from any position you come in for a raise. If you have limpers in front, you got to raise 4bb+1bb for each limper.
For example: 4 limpers ahead of you. You raise 4bb+4bb=8bb minimum raise. Why are we doing that? - Well, if they limped, our AK or AQ are absolutely much better hands vs. theirs limping trash range. We want to play our AK/AQ against their limping garbage. If you are on the button with AK/AQ and all the 6 fish ahead of you have limped, you raise 10bb, $20 for 1-2 game or $50 for 2-5 game.

You can do this play in the dark and still works. Even if you only look to one card a see an Ace or o King with some garbage as a second card and always raise the limpers, your one big card value is better then the entire limping monkey's range. (your A2o or K2o vs. fish's JTo is 55:45) You got an edge. You put each $50 in the pot and you take out $55, and this is with absolute garbage big card value only.



100% agreed. You gotta raise BIG. Yea you are going to lose some chips from time to time facing reraise shoves but that happens rarely.

At low to mid stakes cash games I saw people 4betting with AJ suited way too often to fold my AK.

The reraise you should do preflop also can work as a squeeze which gives you immediate profit without risking getting brutally outflopped (e.g. getting your top two pair outflopped by a set) which also happens from time to time.


Edit: I read the original post again. If you think folding AK against a reraise is a good move I want to play poker with you. That basically tells me you are only willing to play against a reraise with better hands which is only AA and KK (all pairs have better odds but yeah thats just a flip) and that is really really bad thinking for your game.
 
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leshausa03

leshausa03

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If no luck the hand will not play. Even if it is AA
 
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