AKs, AQs vs. late opener

[storm_madden]

30-60 game, ten handed. All folded to 2 off the button who raises. You feel his raising range here is around A9o-K9s-66 or better. You have AKs. The remaining players are average and the blinds defend in an average manner.

I've virtually eliminated open-calling and cold-calling from my preflop game but I'm wondering if this situation would be right to just call and hope to get some volume. I like winning big pots.

If it's generally incorrect to just call here (I think it is), then how much EV would you be giving up? Is this a close play or not even close? And how does AQs do in this situation?

[elysium]

hi storm
your ev improves in this situation if you raise. you don't hate being heads up here.

[Softrock]

Storm -

I think this is one of those situations where coldcalling or three-betting probably doesn't make a huge difference and I don't think you could call either one a mistake. I would generally opt for three-betting. However, I will do this thing with these hands where I'll occassionally decide ahead of time that the next time I have such a hand I'll just limp along - I did that recently in a 30-60 game where I'd been playing very aggressively. I had AKs and was against AQ and my opponent was quite surprised to see I had him outkicked given that I had not raised BTF.

My recommendation would be that you vary your play in this situation but definitely raise more often than call.

[storm_madden]

Mid and high limit poker is more complicated than if (+EV) then raise. There are too many factors to consider. A lot of assumptions go into the EV figure, ususually it is based on hot and cold sims (bad) or even 'smart' sims (not as bad, but flawed). I posted this because I am thinking about the way the hand plays on later streets.

Hot and cold, AKs vs. the raising range I described is about 62.6% winner, so obviously it has good EV in this respect.

Consider when you reraise the raiser you will get action from only a small % of hands behind you; someone would need AK, AA, KK, QQ, maybe JJ to consider playing. So you are effectively making it a headsup contest.

But if you cold call the raiser, in a normal 30-60 game the BB is getting 5.5:1 on the call. Assuming they only play the top 50% of hands and fold real garbage you'll get called 50% of the time from the BB. The other 50% you get the BB's blind money. But you've got to know how the BB plays before you make this play, some players can't help but call with A2o or K4o and that is how you make money at poker.

I ran a hot and cold sim with AKs vs hand raising range from above (A9o,QJs,66 roughly) vs the BB holding the roughly top 50% of hands. AKs had about 46.2% equity with group 2 at 29.5% and group 3 24.32%.

So do you want 62.6% of 2 (1.252), or 46.2$ of 3 (1.386)?

I don't take the above numbers at face value, it's just a quick analysis of one aspect of the question. But there are so many strategy considerations, especially play in later streets, that I think the play is worth considering.

[elysium]

hi storm
well, raising gives you a chance to out play your opponent on later rounds. i didn't have time to give a detailed explanation, but with the suited there, a lot of things can happen on the turn that will favor you having reraised the pre-flop rather than having called. yes, if your image isn't solid, you lose some of the glimmer a pre-flop raise gives you. so if you've been showing down a little on the loose side, of course calling pre-flop has more merit. now whether there is a hiccup in the math that makes calling more favorable or not, only the abbacus knows for sure. however, the burp of solid image should over-come any hiccup, and so i like reraising. it's good for the gastro intestines.