Getting married to your hand can cost you a lot of a chips. Im telling you from experience. AK is one of em. AA, KK, QQ, and even JJ have cost me plenty of chips in the past. AK is the most constant disappointer. Getting too much money in before the flop by raising and calling a reraise or pounding the limpers with AK and getting raised over the top. AK by far is the biggest loser on this list. Mostly for tournament poker, because as the blinds get larger, the number of hands you can play before the blinds chew the rest of your stuck up gets progressively smaller. When the blinds begin to make up a significant portion of your chips, the range of hands you can play narrows. Sometimes the best move is to limp with AK, try to see a flop without a raise. If someone raises me when I have AK, Ima call anyways, so why not see the flop cheap, especially so out of early position. Many people will tell you that you have two ways to win the pot by raising: one, everyone can fold. Two, your hand hits. But with a hand like AK, frankly you do want to play for all you chips. Because often times enough, especially in the later rounds of the tournament, reraise means pocket pair, and pocket pair means AK has anywhere from a 50 percent to a 96 percent chance of losing. Not too mention a chip leader trying to just make a move with a hand like 98 suited and flop comes 6 7 9.

High pocket pairs only really play well preflop, meaning preflop you have to make a move to narrrow down your oppenents and strengthen the chances of your pair being the best hand. And you can potentionially win massive pots, say when the flop comes 4 8 K and you have 88s while your oppenent have AK. but when you dont hit I wouldnt recommend building up the pot. go in defense mode and only call if the oppenent bets and its a reasonable sized bet. however even that still depends on your opponent. Lets say you had jacks instead of 88s in this position. or even queens. Doesnt matter what size of pocket pairs you have it theres a higher card on the board

As for a hand like aces, lets say you raise with them from under the gun, meaning the next player to the left of the big blind. You get one caller form the button. 8h Jh 10s. you bet he calls. then a Ks. you bet he calls. then on the river is a 2s. With so many ways to lose checking may be the best option. The best thing to do is check call or even think carefully of folding. However that element of human chance to bluff more than likely will help induce a call out of me

Don't think that there is a poker player in the world,that hasn't fell prey to marrying a hand.

correction not a 96 percent chance of losing but a less than 6 percent chance of winning and 1.5 percent to tie

You got a point there.

A lot of times, to decrease the undesirable effect of a player catching up to my AK, AQ, AA, or KK, QQ, JJ, when placing my bets I will adopt a rushing strategy. What this means is that, provided my non-pair hands have hit, or if I have a pair, and there aren't any, or sometimes no more than one over card on the flop, I will play extremely quickly, with very large accompanying bets. This accomplishes a few things: First, if a player originally suspected us of bluffing, adopting this strategy almost always reinforces that false impression, and for the first two bets post flop, his/her immediate call answering your erroneously supposed bluff will, to him or her, ostensibly serve them to deter you from further bluff making, while in actuality, you are killing them, quickly, before they have a chance to think. Also, overthinking ourselves in this situation can lead to a place where we were ahead but our opponent catches up - a prime reason for getting stacked.
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Remember, though, this tactic only has value when you have sufficient information to pass its adoption threshold. It doesn't work if we are not ahead - unless we fortuitously (read: improbably) catch up to our opponent.

I remember the first time I married a hand. It was a cold evening in February. I had just emotionally recovered from yet another Valentine's day alone. Even the flowers I ordered myself never came as the florist ended up cancelling my order.

Anyway, I had been sitting there at the table for a couple hours. The dealer had seemed bored, playing more with the chips in the tray than tracking the action. The ****tail waitress had made her rounds but seemed like avoiding eye contact was part of her job description. I am sure she had a lovely smile, but I never saw it. She walked off with my most recent request as the dealer slipped two more cards under my palm before returning to the wonderment in his chip tray. I peeled the corners of my cards and there they were. A pair of lovely ladies. My heart soared as I tossed a few red chips into the middle of the table. Another player at the table accompanied me and three more cards were dealt. I stayed fixated on the two beauties in front of me and dropped a larger set of chips out as a sign of my affection. The man across the table was intent on intruding on our little affair and matched my love display. Another card was peeled and presented for us, but I did not care. I had what I wanted embraced right there under my hands resting upon the soft cushioned felt on the table. Apparently this disturbed my otherwise under attentive dealer and told me to act. Act I did. I blissfully moved my remaining chips as a declaration of my love. A solid proof that nothing was going to make me part with the soul mates as I shielded them from all others. My stubborn opponent made the call. I proudly displayed my shining beauties and thought of what our love was surely about to reap. Another flip was made and finally our moment together would reach its peak.


"Flush vs Queens, Flush takes the pot"


I was stunned. The dealer shot me a slightly disgusted look and pushed my displays of affection to that uncaring man who insisted on ruining it. Well, those two ladies left me right after that, and the watered down drink the waitress brought me was far from enough to drowned the sorrows of that night.


I have been visited by the ladies many times since, but not again will I allow them to dazzle me with those dark eyes and Mona Lisa smiles. They may be pretty, but I will not again fall victim to overindulging without properly evaluating each and every moment we are together so I know if that hand beneath my own, really is the one.

When i was a teen,i was once engaged to my hand,,,,but then i found a girlfriend.

i play a tournament in pokerstars and play all in KK in BB and received a call by one villain he had A10 and the flop is 8Q7 i think when my hand is probably the best in the turn the card is a 10 and the villain is 20 % and me 80 % and in pokerstars the river always is a surprise, and the five card is a 10 and los the hand for 20k chips i had more chips but i lost almost all my stack and stay with 2k chips, in the next hand i had KK again and play all in because stay short and play all in again and call the same villain he had A8 in this hand i won the pot, but 2 hands after because again play with Q10s and play with the same rival and he had A8 again in the flop Q106 in the turn a A and the river a 8 yes gentleman i lost in the tourney for the river again

You are very right friends. When you get the AK in any position, if you raise preflop and get re-raise then surely your opponent has a pair at your hand. Just like you, I usually have a clear AK. It's safer to see the flop.

I also don't like AK. I lost a lot with this hand. But still I continue to play with it

You are a good writer. LOL

This is amazing! Haha. Great writing.

Hey
Amazing Write Up.
do you write blogs??
I just enjoyed theread.
Thanks for the write up

Thank you kindly.

Thank you as well. I do not blog. Just got caught up in the heat of passion from a cold memory.

Agree with you , AK isn't good enough preflop for me

That has been said many times, but when you first start playing poker it is hard to divorce yourself from those cards. As you play more and more it finally sinks in.

All in hands. Dont need think what to do... just call all in and wait.