Would just like to add a few things to this post, as people all seem to me suggesting different lines to the one i took, and i'm not saying they are wrong, just that i don't necessarily agree that my line was bad.
Firstly just a little on my poker background, so that you don't think that i am trying to say "i am the greatest and you should all listen to me". I have been playing for about 18 months now, and am no where near a profitable poker player- you are all free to look up my stats- they are fairly embarrassing- so you may not want to take anything i say seriously. I feel the main reason i am not a profitable player is due to 3 factors: extremely poor
bankroll management, crazy tilt and alcohol- but am slowly getting these under control- hardly ever play drunk now, and don't tilt as much as i used to, but yeah still find myself playing outside my bankroll on a number of occasions, and all these factors basically lead to me playing poor poker.
Now back to the hand in question, a lot of people are suggesting a raise preflop with AK, now this is fine, but he folds any trash (although its unlikely he has trash as its not worth stealing the blinds at this point), and calls or reraises mainly with hands i am coin flipping against- eg pocket pair <KK. The only thing that he may reraise or call with that i dominate is AQ, perhaps AJs, so basically i increase the pot and need to hit.
Now on the flop if i lead out he folds almost everything i dominate, basically everything which is drawing to 2 outs. If i checkraise, i win a slightly larger pot, but still allow him to get cheaply away from the hand, when he is drawing to between 2 (pocket pr) and 12 (gutshot flush draw or A-flushdraw) outs tops, which gives him at most a 48% of winning at the river, and possibly as low as an 8%. So really i shouldn't be thinking "how can i get hands to fold which could draw out on me", but "how can i get hands which i have crushed to put the most chips in the pot", so a check call on the flop basically does this. As now as the opponent the first thing you put your opponent on is a flush draw, or a weak A/K.
So now onto the turn, now we could go for a check/call again, but this risks him checking behind and you missing out on a street of value, and how many times have you seen a poor villian (and remember my opr stats show me as very poor), check call the flop with a flush draw then lead the turn when they don't hit as they start to panic that they mayn't hit their hand- i must see it at least once a day, so this line keeps up the appearance of the hand we are trying to represent, and will often get raised at this point. The half pot bet allows him to continue with most pair hands that he has, if he puts me on a flush draw.
Basically the river i described well enough in my previous post, i think he calls a full pot bet almost as often as he calls a half pot bet. Another way to play it would be to just donk out really small- say 200- and hope he shoves sensing weakness- but there is just to much chance he calls down with a hand with showdown value.
I feel this hand highlights a couple of things which are very important-
Firstly don't be scared of then hitting their 2-15 outers- of course this doesnt always apply- on a 9h10hJc- flop it probably wouldn't be a good idea to slowplay top 2, but on a flop which is already heads-up you should be more concern about extracting value from worse hands, when you hit it hard then you should be about forcing draws out. And yes i realise that he could already have a set and i could be drawing dead- but hey thats a cooler and you just move on.
Secondly- representing a hand which is beaten by most of villians likely holdings, a betting amounts which allows them to call with that holding. Some may say why didn't i shove the river- that looks like a total donk bluff- yes it does- but it also takes a complete donk to call it with an average holding- and i seriously don't feel that villian in this hand did too much wrong- he still had plenty of chips left at the end of the hand to play with, and it is probably a good bluff catching call a large proportion of the time.
