AK preflop question.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

This has happened to me a couple of times lately, just making sure i know what i'm doing. sorry if it's standard.


party 2k game. a guy makes a standard open (say 70) preflop in middle position. i call in position with AK.

a) folded to BB makes it 250.
1.) original raiser folds.
2.) original raiser calls.

b) folded to the button who makes it 250.
1.) original raiser folds.
2.) original raiser calls.


assume normal ~100bb or 100+bb stacks. what should i be doing here?

[kagame]

why are you cold calling mp raises with AKo?

bump it, dump to a reraise (only hand you wouldnt want to fold to that might three bet is QQ or a maniac's random 2), if called play poker with position and leverage; whats not to love about this situation?

as played i think i always dump to the bb and call the button if its a LAG player, fold otherwise

i hate ak though

[captZEEbo1]

yeah I reraise each time, but as it stands, I fold them all after the reraises.

[Roy__Batty]

there's something i don't like about reraising with AK.
If somebody's got aces or kings he's gonna push or trap you a flop.
If someone has TT JJ QQ he's gonna call.
Rock will fold tens-queens to a pot bet on a small flop, but most players will call/ min check raise you. Then what you do? It's unlikely u turn an ace or king on turned and have wasted so much money.
If u check a small flop, u pretty much tell them u have ak.

That's why i don't like reraising with ak, i prefer to do it to some raisers only, players who will be able to fold right now or on flop pot bet.

Don't ever call with A,K pre flop. There is no point of slow playing A,K because you don't know what the other people have. You got to force bad hands out of the pot. For example the person might have raised with a hand like Q,J. Pair of jacks or queens is better than Ace High. So try to get that hand out of there by reraising big. Only slow play hands like KK, or AA.

[partygirluk]

Why are you all so keen to reraise AK preflop? Most of the time either you or the pfr are gonna fold preflop, so the actual two cards you have aren't relevant. I often call preflop, although I mainly play sngs where this play has more merit.

[lapoker17]

Um, this post is just wrong. The guys who are advocating always reraising pre with AK, I hope are playing shorthanded, because in a full game this is ususally not good. There are always exceptions - like playing back at specific maniacs - but by and large calling is better.

Also, by just calling w AK, noone is trying to slowplay it - we want to see a flop, and we realize that we don't have that great a hand ourselves. And if QJ or AQ or AJ or KQ or KJ raises into us preflop and we call, that's great. That's where we make our money. When the flop comes K97 and some jackass with KQ is ready to go to war.

It's not that hard to figure out that someone has AA or KK after the flop - This reraising to find out where you're at stuff is not the best use of our money.

[B1GF1SHY]

I was thinking the same thing, I'm either open-raising with AK or calling a raise looking to hit a flop. Calling with AK isn't slowplaying, after all you only have A high.

[Dr. StrangeloveX]

What he said.

Reraise pre-flop. Middle position raisers often don't have great starting hands. If they do, they'll probably reraise your reraise, making it easier for you to fold. Also, if BB still raises your raise, then it's easier for you to fold. If you reraise, everyone else folds and the original raiser checks the flop, you can make a pot-sized bet here and he'll probably fold. If he calls, then you need to imrpove before raising or calling anything on the turn.

[amoeba]

this is the way I see AK.

2/3 of the time you miss the flop. and unless if you are willing to raise the pre flop raiser on the flop with ace high, you have to give up on the flop even though you might have the better hand.

Sure its nice to trap a KQ or AQ but considering there are just 2 of the dominated card left in the deck, you just don't flop that card to trap often enough. and if it comes KQX or AQX, you really can't lay AK down and might be even forced to raise the flop to find out where you are with the worse hand.

with a reraise preflop, I prevent continuation bets with all under flops and I can also limit villains range of hands if villain is known to open with wide variety of hands.

[craze9]

Good players will eventually figure it out if you reraise AK every time and they will take advantage of it.

Putting extra money in preflop w/ a drawing hand when your opponent can easily just pop it back at you is not a way to win big pots or minimize losses.

True if called you get to play postflop in position and as the active player but that is true w/ any 2 cards you reraise. AK is a hand without any deception value and you will very rarely stack your opponent in a reraised pot w/ this hand. And the times you do stack you would have stacked if you had just called preflop, and maybe you stack even more if you just call because you wont get blown out of the pot preflop as much, and the pot is smaller allowing you to draw to gutshots/flushes.

I'd rather reraise T7offsuit.

[fsuplayer]

i dont understand why everyone here is so excited about getting your opponents to fold all their dominated hands pf when you reraise.

there are certainly times to reraise pf, but doing it alot, is less +EV than cold calling everyime pf.

if you reraise pf, you almost cant fold HU if you flop a pair with 100BB stack sizes, so you are going to get stacked much more when you are beat.

you should be doing both cold calling and reraising with AK, but the former more than the latter.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

i agre with fsu completely. certainly i reraise AK time to time. but i think just calling here is perfectly fine and probably the best play.

so nevermind the reraising preflop or whatever. i didn't do it. that's past.

what i do want to know is about the reraise after i call. that should generally be a fold, no?

[fsuplayer]

with position I am almost always calling that, esp. in the 10-20 games.

the guys are so over agg. sometimes, they will reraise with alot of PP's and sometimes AQ. they will also try and represent whatever's on the board, so you usually win a decent pot.

also, i can count on like one hand how many times i have flopped an A in a HU reraised pot and lost to AAA. so thats not a huge deal.


OOP, i am calling a little less, but not by much.

folding AK preflop, suited or not, is not something i look to do in these agg. games.

[captZEEbo1]

[ QUOTE ]
Good players will eventually figure it out if you reraise AK every time and they will take advantage of it.

[/ QUOTE ]....[ QUOTE ]
I'd rather reraise T7offsuit.

[/ QUOTE ]
good players will realize THIS too.....*yawn*. And I never said I reraise AK EVERY time preflop, just those scenarios I probably would. Sometimes I fold AK to a single raise preflop...just depends on the situation. I mostly play 6-max though, and reraising AK 100% time on 6max isn't too bad a strat imo.

[ QUOTE ]
Putting extra money in preflop w/ a drawing hand when your opponent can easily just pop it back at you is not a way to win big pots or minimize losses.

[/ QUOTE ]
How often do people 3-bet bluff you preflop? Probably not THAT often. If they do, I'm sure you should've already noticed that and be happy to get AK allin pf vs them.

[Imperial]

[ QUOTE ]
you should be doing both cold calling and reraising with AK, but the former more than the latter.



[/ QUOTE ]


When I started reraising more with AK preflop my results for that hand has gone way up. Whats importent to know is that you dont have to play for your stack just because you rr preflop. You flop all unders and your opponent bets pot, lay it down and move on. If he checks to you on a missed flop, you can check behind (or bet if you think he will fold). Many players will be glad to check JJ/QQ all the way down wich gives you nice free cards, and an easy hand to play.

[craze9]

Good players will realize what too...YAWN?

I never said I would reraise T7 every time or with any regularity, I implied that in a hypothetical situation of reraising an Ep or Mp raiser I would rather have a hand like T7 than AK.

Shorthanded is different obviously, though OP was referring to full ring I believe. Still I wouldn't reraise AK in 6-max very much for the same reasons I gave in the last post plus the fact that you won't even get credit for having a big pair as in 6-Max people expect you to reraise AK.


[ QUOTE ]
How often do people 3-bet bluff you preflop? Probably not THAT often. If they do, I'm sure you should've already noticed that and be happy to get AK allin pf vs them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would never be happy to get all in pf w/ AK. Maybe I'll think my hand is best and 4 bet but I would never want them to call. Cant understand who would be happy w/ that.

The point is that people defend reraising AK because they have done it w/ some success. But if your idea of reraising is the same as mine (at least the pot and often more depending on stack size), you will win preflop or on the flop w/ a bet almost every time. So your cards are not significant. And w/ AK, your implied odds arent very good.

I don't reraise pf very much because I try to win big pots when I play. When I do reraise I have a specific reason. "I have AK in the hole" is in itself a very poor reason. That is my point.