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.