AK is the nuts

[n1bd]

Here are two recent hands where I put all my chips in with AKo preflop.


5/10 6-max. My first hand at the table. I have 1000 and everyone has me covered except UTG who has 960.

I post 10 in the cutoff. UTG limps, MP raises to 30, I call, Button calls, blinds fold, UTG raises to 70, MP calls, I raise all in.

I have never played with UTG or MP before. I have played with Button a bit; he's 23/8 and seems to play straightforwardly.


6-handed 2/4 home game. UTG posts a live straddle of 8. He has about 530 and I have him covered.

I open in the cutoff for 32, straddle makes it 100, I make it 300, he goes all in for 230 more, I auto-call.

This is the first straddle in several hours.

I have been raising more often than I typically would preflop and haven't shown many of those hands.

My opponent is a solid NL pro, but he plays a little looser and wilder at home for fun ("it's fun to bust each other"). His reraise here could be AK TT-AA, AQ sometimes, maybe AJs, maybe even as low as AJ 99 if he thinks I'm making a play but I doubt it. He does not reraise from the blinds often. He gives me too much respect in general, but will take advantage of my preflop tightness by stealing if I have shown weakness (this is usually just if I limp, and on rare occasion if I raise in steal position).

[n1bd]

Regarding hand #2, I don't normally play AK that aggressively there. This is a "semi-bluff" to "mix up my play" or whatever you kids call it.

[TM1212]

SO, with only 240 in the pot you raise allin 930 more????? This seems like the worst play I have personally ever heard of in my entire life! The only hands that can call QQ-AA, ethier dominate you or are a close favorite. You have horribly over playd this hand! At best you win a small pot, more likely you loss ever chip in front of you. Sorry for how aggervated I am over this hand... The play just seems ridiculous! See the flop, and play from there. You have far from a made hand.

If your post about this oppenent is correct, you could be dominated, a slight dog, or have him dominated. Why make this play? I guess if you want to have some fun in a home game its fine, but personally I can wait for a real hand, i have patience. I guess your plays ok on this hand

[TM1212]

reguarding your second post clearly you play AK way to aggro, I doubt this is mixing up your play, and why would you mix up you play for all you chips preflop?

[Chris Dow]

Hand number 1 is terrible. Hand number 2, while also terrible, is only moderately more tolerable because you are joking around with a buddy in a homegame so he will be much more likely to be very aggressive with smaller pairs here which is what is saving you. (small pair = JJ btw) But yeah, raising all in on hand number 1 is a play that just loses like half of your stack every time you make it.

[n1bd]

[ QUOTE ]
The only hands that can call QQ-AA, ethier dominate you or are a close favorite.

[/ QUOTE ]

At the time I made the play I understood that those were the only hands likely calling me. (Once in a while I might get a suspicious call from a worse pair or AK or maybe even a worse ace.)

If they hold AA-QQ, let them call. I was banking on the fact that no one held AA or KK.
<ul type="square"> I hold AK, so the chances of being up against AA or KK are the same as the chances of being against AA when I hold KK. I would throw out a rhetorical, "Would you go all in with KK here?" but it's not the same situation, since small pps have much more equity against AK than KK.
This is 6-handed, not 10-handed. It's a minor difference, but it is a difference. It's almost twice as likely someone has AA/KK at a full table.
The action makes it much less likely that AA/KK is out there. UTG and MP had two chances each to put in a "real" raise in what was developing to be a big multiway pot, and instead they chose to let everyone draw cheaply. It takes great discipline or stupidity to play AA/KK this softly twice and risk going broke.
[/list]
[ QUOTE ]
At best you win a small pot, more likely you loss ever chip in front of you. [...] See the flop, and play from there. You have far from a made hand.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is "made hand" that important a factor? You think moving in with 88 here is better than with AK?

There are a couple "dead money" considerations that made me more inclined to take it down preflop rather than waiting to see if the flop helped me.
<ul type="square"> I no longer consider this to be a "small pot." The pot has 25BB, or over 1/4 my stack.
This is developing into a big 4-way pot where everyone got in cheaply preflop (or at least never had to call too much at one time). If they have small-medium pps or Ax and flop a set or two pair when I flop a pair, I will be committed to the pot and will lose my stack. I would prefer to brush off these drawing hands preflop.
[/list]

[iceman5]

If I limp UTG and then reraise a raiser, I can promise you you will be sorry if you go all in on me with AK.

As a matter of fact, it happened to me last night and guess what I had?

You think many people limp reraise with anything that AK has dominated? Youre either donimated or you are a coinflip.

The other day I saw a guy playing the $1/$2 NL table at PokerStars. Hes been playing the $5/$10 NL game there for quite a while (PokerStars players would know him if I gave his name). I asked him why he was playing so low and he said that he took a big bankroll hit and had to build back up. He said he lost a bunch of big hands including 5 consecutive coin flips all in preflop.

This tells me that hes way to willing to get all in for a full stack preflop with AK or a middle pair.

Its a bad strategy.

[n1bd]

I am "mixing up my play" because I think it is a correct, +EV move, not just because I want to seem reckless and random. Maybe I should've been more clear. When I said I don't normally play AK this aggressively, I meant that I take this line when reraised maybe 20% of the time.

I thought I had a good chance to take it down preflop, probably enough to be profitable right there. I guess that's just a math problem based on his hand range and the fact that I am risking 430 to win 140 or 3:1. He is 1:1 to have QQ:AA/KK, 2:1 to have QQ/JJ:AA/KK, 3.5:1 to have AK/QQ/JJ:AA/KK (these numbers assume he will reraise the same fraction of the time when he has AA as when he has AK, which might not be true). If we start mixing in AQ or worse even part of the time, though, things start looking rosy.

Aside from the immediate profitability of the play, I think integration or Shania or whatever you want to call it is an important consideration. When I make that big "I have AA/KK" reraise, I want my opponent to sometimes fear that I'm bluffing so he'll be more likely to call with worse hands, particularly if he doesn't have a good idea of the exact frequency at which I make these "plays" so he is more likely to make a mistake. 22 or 55 are fine hands to bluff reraise with, but AK seems best because it's less likely I'm up against AA/KK and because I have more equity against his overall reraising hand range.

[n1bd]

[ QUOTE ]
If I limp UTG and then reraise a raiser, I can promise you you will be sorry if you go all in on me with AK.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is this how you limp-reraise your premium hands, by raising less than 1/3 of the pot in a multiway pot? I figured UTG didn't need to have a big hand in this spot, but I didn't have a particular read on UTG so what do I know. Maybe he is just a bad player making a bad play with AA, and I am accommodating him by making an even worse play.

[iceman5]

No, when I do it, I reraise more than that, but most people love to reraise the min with AA.
The point it that rarely will anyone limp reraise ANY amount without at least a pair, so at best your a coinflip and Id say theres about a 50% chance he has AA or KK.

[n1bd]

[ QUOTE ]
Id say theres about a 50% chance he has AA or KK.

[/ QUOTE ]
In that case I am toast.

AKo vs. AA-KK is .18, so if everyone folds a fraction P of the time and otherwise calls with AA-KK, my EV is

EV = P * (1000 + 70 + 70 + 30 + 15) + (1-P) * .18 * (2000 + 70 + 30 + 15) - 970 = 0
1185P + 381 - 381P - 970 = 0
P = 589/804 = .73

So if someone calls with AA/KK more than 27% of the time here, I lose.

Against AA-QQ I have .31 showdown equity and it works out to P = .59, so I need them to call no more than 41% of the time with AA-QQ.

[iceman5]

So what happened?

[n1bd]

Hand #1: All fold to MP (the original raiser) who calls with QQ.

Hand #2: He has KK.

[Chris Dow]

I think the results are important here. Of course the guy has at least QQ. He isn't going to fold it. He doesn't fold it. You end up in your best case scenario and it is QQ vs AK. In a cash game this is just not good. Number 2, even more disastrous. You're really asking for it when you play AK this way, and you're gonna get it.

[georgesimpson]

I know you're a math guy from looking at some of your other posts.

So you are risking 4x the pot to win x basically.

From the scenarios described the most likely hands are AA, KK, QQ or AKs (best case). It is also possible that they hold JJ - 77 and AQs. Let's assume the proportion of the maximum strength hand you'll be up against is 70% the former group (hands you don't like to see), and 30% of the latter which will almost always fold here.

So let's say you take the 30% of the time because all the hands in that weak group would be insane to call you.

therefore your expected value 30% of the time is x.

Just for argument's sake let them be crazy and actually choose to call with AKs.
AA wins 93% of the time.
KK wins 70% of the time.
QQ wins 57% of the time.
AKs win 53% of the time. (extremely generous)

simple average says 70% of the time they will have ~70% pot equity.

30% of the time you will win x outright because they didn't have strong enough hands to call.

in the second scenario you risk 4x to win 4x+x (the contribution already in the pot). 30% of 9x is just 3x.

Therefore you are risking 4x to get .3(x) + .7 (-1x) =
-.4x.

It doesn't make sense even with these really lax assumptions. (assuming my math is right).

[n1bd]

Yeah, your math and approximations seem really good.

At the time, I put the chance of one of them having a premium hand at much less than 70% since the only two raises had been pretty small and the original raiser had not reraised the second time around. I definitely wouldn't have called if I thought it was more than 50%.

Having read the comments here and chatted about it with some people, though, I am starting to think I was wrong and the chance of a premium hand is prohibitive.

[cero_z]

Hi n1bd,

[ QUOTE ]
Having read the comments here and chatted about it with some people, though, I am starting to think I was wrong and the chance of a premium hand is prohibitive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to jump in at this point. I was going to respond to some of the 1st few replies, but your rebuttal was excellent, and said most of what I was thinking. Now you're starting to be convinced by these guys, and I think they're wrong.

In hand #1, there is virtually no chance you're looking at AA or KK, for the reasons you mentioned. UTG would have to be a total idiot to play his hand this way if he held AA/KK, and even then, he'd have to be a total idiot who wasn't greedy. His raise is too small to be one of those hands. MP is good, and he played QQ well throughout the hand. If I were him, I would've called you with JJ or better, or AK/AQ. But this is because he can see what you can see: nobody is likely to have a hand as good as TT at this point, except you or him, who could have TT, JJ, or QQ exactly, but nothing better. His hand is as likely as AA to be ahead in this situation; just not as far ahead.

Your all-in raise makes sense with AK, since you want to win now, but don't mind being all-in against anyone at this table, since AA/KK is ruled out. As you pointed out, there's a lot of dead money in the pot right now.

I will make a play like yours in this hand with far less than AK, as long as I'm dealing with typical opponents, who won't usually call that much money unless they have a premium hand. The guy happened to have QQ; I assure you that most folks who go call 30, call 40 more pre-flop don't have anything close to that 90% of the time.

Hand #2 is obviously terrible, given how your opponent views you. You made a couple of mistakes, I think. When he made it 100, I wouldn't re-raise. Re-raising anything more than the minimum pot-commits you, given his small stack, and allows him to play his hand perfectly against you.