How to Play AK?

jonjonR · Apr 20, 2011

I want any opinions on how to play ace king. I was playing in many low limit tourneys and always seem to get knocked out when i hold ace king but dumb people who shove with 8s of lower pocket pairs. or random jq . Suggestions on how to avoid this situation. I know and realize ak isnt the nuts. But do you think with alot of bb in front of you early in a tourney its ok to go all in with ace king only to get sucked out on:thrasher:

losched16 · Apr 21, 2011

Early on in tourneys and SNGs, it is typically not a good idea to get it all in with AK. First off, are you calling and all in or are you shoving? These are two very different scenarios, so I will address each. I personally play a lot of SNGs, so my advice will be made with a SNG focus.

Calling all ins with AK is usually not a good idea when it comes to early game ICM considerations. If you are faced with an all in, you first have to think, what is my opponent pushing with so early on in the game? Of course there are some bad players who are shoving mediocre aces and broadway hands, so it iwll be important to note these players because calling an all in against them may be profitable in the long run. But most players, though they may not be winning players, typically will not push "that" light early on. You may see AQ+ turned over often, and you will also see 99+. While it is probably not a good idea to be shoving 99 early either, if you call an all in and a guy turns over 99, you are the underdog. Also, I am not 100% sure if this is accurate as I do not remember the source, but I read an article that I believe said, to call an all in with AK, based on ICM, you need to be sure you are at a minimum a 54% favorite. Just to give you an idea as to what that means, if you know for a fact that someone is capable of pushing KQ+, A10+, and 88+ preflop, you are only a 51% favorite. So if my 54% is correct, the only way calling an all in with AK in the first few levels is if a player is pushing with QJ+, K10+, A10+, and 88+. That is very wide range of hands that I do not think most players will be pushing with. So with AK, you may be better off folding to all in early in the game unless you have very specific notes on a bad player.

If you are the one shoving, you are most likely faced with a 3 bet rather than open shoving 50BB. If this is the case you need to know if someone is 3 betting you light or they only make this play with the top of their range. If the case is the former, you can shove and now put them to the decision. This is a profitable play. However, I would consider folding to a 3 bet from a tight player. This play is made much easier if you have HUD stats or specific notes. I hope this helps

Waybizzle · Apr 21, 2011

I dont think there is a way to avoid this situation. As to what losched said i dont think you can take that into consideration. At these real low limits you cant play professional poker and expect these other players to play good and give you credit for great hands, they are going to look down at QJ and see two face cards and think they are good. Or even see two suited cards and try to draw to a flush or whatever...they are going to try to see flops, and they are not going to want to fold their hands. You are going to get very inexperienced players at your table who are going to be risking their stack early in tournaments on mediocre hands. So i guess the real question here is what are you willing to risk, how much do you depend on the money you have in this tournament your playing. Do you want to get it all in early in a tournament with a lot of BBs with AK and PROBABLY be in a good spot to double up, maybe get sucked out on. If you double up then you can be the table general have more chips to play with and be in a great position to pickup a lot of small pots. OR do you want to kinda sit back a little bit, wait for the blinds to get bigger feel out the table see which monkeys at your table are playing very loose and then try to find a spot in which the blinds are say 50/100 and u have like 1100 chips and then a bigstack loose monkey raises in late position and then you re shove all in with AK or AQ and will be in a great spot to double up. Id say based on the question your asking, it depends on your bankroll, how much your willing to gamble, how much the money means to you, if your really worried about trying to make the money... then just fold the AK early in the tournament, wait till the blinds get bigger and find GOOD spots where these LARGE STACK, LOOSE AGGRESSIVE players raise a pot in late position, and then you just re shove your stack with hands like AK,AQ,AJ,KQ, pocket pairs because their ranges are going to be so wide, they will likely fold.. or if they call youll have them crushed most of the time, you will get calls like A8 offsuit, or QT or 89 suited ...tons of stuff. But summarizing this up, i dont think you can avoid these situations...my tournament advice to you is dont play the cards... play the situation that you are in and play the player you are against based on how you've noticed them playing..seriously you can tell after about 30 minutes of playing with them some players will build a lucky stack of like 7000 early and they will start raising with a WIDE range of hands, if you three bet them or reshove all in then you can steal a lot of chips. All you can ask for is to get it in with the better cards, if you lose then start up a new tournament... being a poker player your going to have to deal with bad beats.

Hope my advice helps

losched16 · Apr 21, 2011

Waybizzle said:
I dont think there is a way to avoid this situation. As to what losched said i dont think you can take that into consideration. At these real low limits you cant play professional poker and expect these other players to play good and give you credit for great hands, they are going to look down at QJ and see two face cards and think they are good. Or even see two suited cards and try to draw to a flush or whatever...they are going to try to see flops, and they are not going to want to fold their hands. You are going to get very inexperienced players at your table who are going to be risking their stack early in tournaments on mediocre hands. So i guess the real question here is what are you willing to risk, how much do you depend on the money you have in this tournament your playing. Do you want to get it all in early in a tournament with a lot of BBs with AK and PROBABLY be in a good spot to double up, maybe get sucked out on. If you double up then you can be the table general have more chips to play with and be in a great position to pickup a lot of small pots. OR do you want to kinda sit back a little bit, wait for the blinds to get bigger feel out the table see which monkeys at your table are playing very loose and then try to find a spot in which the blinds are say 50/100 and u have like 1100 chips and then a bigstack loose monkey raises in late position and then you re shove all in with AK or AQ and will be in a great spot to double up. Id say based on the question your asking, it depends on your bankroll, how much your willing to gamble, how much the money means to you, if your really worried about trying to make the money... then just fold the AK early in the tournament, wait till the blinds get bigger and find GOOD spots where these LARGE STACK, LOOSE AGGRESSIVE players raise a pot in late position, and then you just re shove your stack with hands like AK,AQ,AJ,KQ, pocket pairs because their ranges are going to be so wide, they will likely fold.. or if they call youll have them crushed most of the time, you will get calls like A8 offsuit, or QT or 89 suited ...tons of stuff. But summarizing this up, i dont think you can avoid these situations...my tournament advice to you is dont play the cards... play the situation that you are in and play the player you are against based on how you've noticed them playing..seriously you can tell after about 30 minutes of playing with them some players will build a lucky stack of like 7000 early and they will start raising with a WIDE range of hands, if you three bet them or reshove all in then you can steal a lot of chips. All you can ask for is to get it in with the better cards, if you lose then start up a new tournament... being a poker player your going to have to deal with bad beats.

Hope my advice helps

Again, I'm going to speak purely from a SNG perspective. As I said before, if you do know that a player is capable of pushing Ax, or QJ, then yes, you can call with AK. But this decision is not made based upon your bankroll, it needs to be based on ICM, no matter what stakes you play. It is not professional poker. It is making the correct mathematical decision based upon the situation no matter whether you are playing a $1 table or $50, because the math remains the same. Just because you are playing lower stakes, if you disregard ICM implications, then you are going to see your bankroll get depleted. The reason that AK is not an automatic snap call in the early game is because, though your chips double, your equity in the tournament does not double. So it wll be very helpful to know your opponent's shoving range to make the correct play.

Cliff notes on my advice: Call a shove with AK if you know your opponent is capable of shoving, QJ+, K10+, A10+, 88+ or worse
If your opponent is tighter than this range, you will have less than 54% equity against that range, therefore you should fold because you are not getting enough equity as determined by ICM.

WiZZiM · Apr 21, 2011

OP- General questions get general answers. Ask more specific questions like "is it ok to call off a 75BB shove with AK at 10/20 vs a fish?"

You will get much better answers that are specific to your question. There is no one answer on how to play AK. In one situation it can be fine to play for stacks with AK, other times, it can be horribly bad, it's very situational.

Potheadwoman · Apr 21, 2011

Just to throw out my two cents.

Early blind SNG if you want to play your AK for value raise a bit higher then 3-3.5 BB.Why? because lets say the blind is 30 and you raise to 90. Well this is whats going to happen often enough.

I raise CO to 90. BB calls

flop 7h 2s Ac

rainbow flop. Good. no str8 draw great. BB bets 20 into a pot of 200. I raise to 120. Turn a 9. BB bets maybe 150 I reraise and he 3bets me I 4bet all in. guy has 92. to beat my AK.

Things like that will happen with AK. So dont be afraid to raise it up early in the game. I would go 4-5 BB in order to get the morons out of hands that you cant read or predict.

Oh and if you has a monster stack of say 5000-6000 vs a guy with 1000-1500 Snap call an all in with AK when the blinds start effecting the game.

Other then that tread lightly with your AK because more often then you like your in a near coin flip!!

While Im on the stage look out for the guys who seem tight aggressive. The HUD stats might indicate some skill but pay attention to where they play hands by position and how they value hands like AJ A10. These guys might appear to have a tight range but sometimes you can pick out a sucker who heard tight aggressive was good but dont quite understand what that really means. Peace baby!

NineLions · Apr 21, 2011

WiZZiM said:
OP- General questions get general answers. Ask more specific questions like "is it ok to call off a 75BB shove with AK at 10/20 vs a fish?"

You will get much better answers that are specific to your question. There is no one answer on how to play AK. In one situation it can be fine to play for stacks with AK, other times, it can be horribly bad, it's very situational.

^^^ Some situations you open shove, some you call a raise, some you can even open fold preflop.

- what do you hope your opponents will do?
- what do you expect your opponents to do?
- given that, how can you most likely make that happen?
- given that, how likely is it that they will react as you hope?
- how important is this single hand to your tournament as a whole? Can you fold the flop and outplay them later? Do you need chips? Are skill levels so close that you need to take every possible +EV situation?

sryImPro · Apr 21, 2011

well i have a very bad experience with AK and i never call when someone go all in,especially preflop...sometimes maybe if it's suited

jbbb · Apr 21, 2011

losched16 said:
Again, I'm going to speak purely from a SNG perspective. As I said before, if you do know that a player is capable of pushing Ax, or QJ, then yes, you can call with AK. But this decision is not made based upon your bankroll, it needs to be based on ICM, no matter what stakes you play. It is not professional poker. It is making the correct mathematical decision based upon the situation no matter whether you are playing a $1 table or $50, because the math remains the same. Just because you are playing lower stakes, if you disregard ICM implications, then you are going to see your bankroll get depleted. The reason that AK is not an automatic snap call in the early game is because, though your chips double, your equity in the tournament does not double. So it wll be very helpful to know your opponent's shoving range to make the correct play.

Cliff notes on my advice: Call a shove with AK if you know your opponent is capable of shoving, QJ+, K10+, A10+, 88+ or worse
If your opponent is tighter than this range, you will have less than 54% equity against that range, therefore you should fold because you are not getting enough equity as determined by ICM.

Pretty solid advice to be fair. If you're 100% your against a pocker pair it's actually a fold, but you can rarely be 100% and also dead money the in pot may make it a +ev decision. I micro's it's usually not terrible as a lot of Ax are going to call which puts you at like 60% against a range of Ax broadways and PP's.

Anyway, as Wiz said it's situational don't take every advice as the fact but remember what is said and try and see if you can apply it to your game.

jonjonR · Apr 21, 2011

WiZZiM said:
OP- General questions get general answers. Ask more specific questions like "is it ok to call off a 75BB shove with AK at 10/20 vs a fish?"

You will get much better answers that are specific to your question. There is no one answer on how to play AK. In one situation it can be fine to play for stacks with AK, other times, it can be horribly bad, it's very situational.

Thanks for the advice I will keep that in mind. I guess Im really just talking about lower limit tourneys. Very early.

baudib1 · Apr 21, 2011

get it in.

Gunner57 · Apr 21, 2011

About two months ago I got a HUD. For the first 6-7K in hands my AKs and o was -$. This was because I was over valuing this hand pre-flop out of position. I changed some things and 5K hands later they are well profitable for me (I will say 5-6K is low # to draw credible conclusions but I see a difference). AK is a good starting hand because of the many outs it give, but it still looses to 22!

By calling all in preflop with AK I think of it as a true coin flip situation... So you have to decide if your skill and current position is good enough to win the tourney by out playing and picking a better moment or if you are going to flip a coin for your life? I will be honest that I have called all in a few times on AK but most of the time I had good reads on opponents. Mostly I want to see a flop with AK.

Now if you are not in that situation were you want to risk your tourney on coin flip I think you need to let your position, stack size, and the type of oppenent you are playing determine how you play it. With AK generally want to bet pre flop only enough to get poor hands out but you want to see a flop (also slightly build a pot but not too much yet).

Try to controll the size of the pot as much as possible as what happens if the board comes out Q high and villian bets out? What if he bets out and you only have a gut str8 draw? Lots of situations that can come out for you that are difficult to play once the flop hits so tread lightly till you know how to play post flop as will make it easier to fold when you need to.

Overall AK is not the nuts pre-flop so unless you have a Low M I would play aggressive but smart. Highly recomend always keeping your focus on position.

baudib1 · Apr 21, 2011

AK IS the nuts preflop if you have less than 100 BBs. There are very very few situations in any tournament where you should fold AK preflop (not counting STT bubble situations). LOL@ sample sizes of 6-7k hands.

Poker Orifice · Apr 21, 2011

fold:thrasher:

Poker Orifice · Apr 21, 2011

that ^ was my "5,000th" post!!!!! And what quality I might add! A nice, clean concise answer! > FOLD! (fold cuz it's easier to just wait for AA)

Bwammo · Apr 22, 2011

baudib1 said:
AK IS the nuts preflop if you have less than 100 BBs. There are very very few situations in any tournament where you should fold AK preflop (not counting STT bubble situations). LOL@ sample sizes of 6-7k hands.

Um...sorry to say this but AK isn't the nuts preflop in any situation

Any pocket pair is a mild favorite against it...so how can it be considered the nuts? Typically early in a STT we're trying to avoid coinflip situations because they do not increase our tournament equity enough to warrant it. In large field MTTs it's a bit more beneficial to willingly accept coinflips early but it's still not a terribly great practice unless you're 100% capable of properly bullying and pushing people around when you achieve "huge stack" status.

I fold AK preflop frequently facing all in situations early in STTs. The decision certainly stems from the quality of player I'm up against, but on average it's not a very good proposition to find yourself in.

Potheadwoman · Apr 22, 2011

if my AK is sooted I ill push it. well I push any two sooted cards

cjatud2012 · Apr 23, 2011

Unfortunately there is no magic bullet here (or in any situation, really). What I suggest is you look at different situations in your hand history and posting them in the Hand Analysis section. That is really the only way your understanding of the game is going to improve - it'll teach you why certain moves are the correct ones, and how those moves can be very incorrect in a different situation.

That being said, I'm actually going to close this thread. Since it's so general, a thread like this tends to attract a lot of short/useless spam (especially from that Bwammo guy, wtf is up with him

). But yeah, definitely pick out some actual hands that you've played and post them for analysis.

How to Play AK?

jonjonR

Enthusiast

losched16

Enthusiast

Waybizzle

Rising Star

losched16

Enthusiast

WiZZiM

Legend

Potheadwoman

Enthusiast

NineLions

Advanced beginner

sryImPro

Legend

jbbb

Legend

jonjonR

Enthusiast

baudib1

Legend

Gunner57

Rock Star

baudib1

Legend

Poker Orifice

Fully Tilted

Poker Orifice

Fully Tilted

Bwammo

DragTheBar Coach

Potheadwoman

Enthusiast

cjatud2012

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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