AK in SB
 

There is no available information about how any of the players have played before. You are TeddyKGB.

William Hill £10k Monday, NL Hold’em, Buy-In: £25+£2

50 Places Paid
1st £2569.12
2nd £1511.25
3rd £806.00
4th £654.87
5th £503.75
6th £403.00
7th £302.25
8th £251.87
9th £201.50
10th £151.12
11th-20th £100.75
21st-30th £80.60
31st-40th £60.45
41st-50th £30.22

Level 6: Stackes 100/200
Next break: in 45 minutes
Next level: in 15 minutes 150/300
403 entrants, currently 155 on 16 tables
Stacks: 15090-Largest, 2900-average, 195-smallest

Seat 1: TeddyKGB (4500)
Seat 2: Biochen (2980)
Seat 3: Onion10 (2220)
Seat 4: Handle (5202.50)
Seat 5: Gregevs (7365)
Seat 6: Pinenuts (4845)
Seat 7: Raydoday (3450)
Seat 8: Bburo7 (2555)
Seat 9: Tango7 (1115)
Seat 10: Rory001 (6702.50)
TeddyKGB posts small blind (100)
Biochen posts big blind (200)

Dealt to TeddyKGB [ A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] ]

Onion10 folds
Handle folds
Gregevs folds
Pinenuts folds
Raydoday folds
Bburo7 raises to 600
Tango7 folds

What is TeddyKGB’s move?

Re: AK in SB
 

you prob have the best hand right now,but he has position on you.
seen as the the raise came from a stealing position then he could have a wide range of hands.
i think a good play here would be to make a pot size reraise to see where you stand.if he fold your happy ,you pick up the pot ,and he puts you all in,i would call .

Re: AK in SB
 

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you prob have the best hand right now


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what makes you think this?

I would either min raise villain here (hoping to establish control and letting villain know I have a hand), or I would flat call and re-evaluate when i see the flop. I would prefer to reraise.

Re: AK in SB
 

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you prob have the best hand right now


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what makes you think this?

I would either min raise villain here (hoping to establish control and letting villain know I have a hand), or I would flat call and re-evaluate when i see the flop. I would prefer to reraise.

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he prob has the best hand against the wide range of hands that the original raiser could raise with.
raiser may have a PP but there is simply many more unpaird hands than PP's that would fit in the raisers range.seen as AK is the best unpaired hand,hence he prob has the best hand.

Re: AK in SB
 

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you prob have the best hand right now,but he has position on you.
seen as the the raise came from a stealing position then he could have a wide range of hands.
i think a good play here would be to make a pot size reraise to see where you stand.if he fold your happy ,you pick up the pot ,and he puts you all in,i would call .

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Why do you put in a pot sized re-raise to see where you stand if you are going to call an all-in anyway? Surely the information you find from the pot sized re-raise is irrelevant.

Re: AK in SB
 

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you prob have the best hand right now


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what makes you think this?

I would either min raise villain here (hoping to establish control and letting villain know I have a hand), or I would flat call and re-evaluate when i see the flop. I would prefer to reraise.

[/ QUOTE ]
he prob has the best hand against the wide range of hands that the original raiser could raise with.
raiser may have a PP but there is simply many more unpaird hands than PP's that would fit in the raisers range.seen as AK is the best unpaired hand,hence he prob has the best hand.

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OP states that there is no information available on the other players, that he has no reads.
So based on this alone, how is it you know what cards he has, or even what his range is? He raised, that's all.
This is a common mistake that inexperienced players make in assuming they can assign certain hands to a player without ANY information at all. He raised, let's not make snap judgements about what a player has based on incomplete data. In the long run you will come out a much better player for it.

AK is a very good hand, but a dog to any pair and a major dog to AA or KK. You can argue for a reraise or flat call here, possibly even a push.

Re: AK in SB
 

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what makes you think this?

I would either min raise villain here (hoping to establish control and letting villain know I have a hand), or I would flat call and re-evaluate when i see the flop. I would prefer to reraise.

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What benefit are you getting from a min-raise? He's very unlikely to fold. It allows him the chance to go all-in, do you fold to an all-in? If he just calls and you miss AK then what do you do?

Re: AK in SB
 

Re-raise all in.

Re: AK in SB
 

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Re-raise all in.

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Re: AK in SB
 

I'm surprised no one has yet favoured my rather unsophisticated approach here (re-raise all in). He's going to fold to an all in reraise unless he has one of a small group of hands, only one of which has you completely dominated. The range of hands that he might make this move with is very large from pocker pairs to suited connectors to face cards. Assuming you call and see a flop, any flop that will persude him to act first and show strength is likely to be dangerous. I would justput him to a decision for his tournament and if he wants to make a stand with a medium pair, well, you'll live. If you walk into bullets, you were likely to lose your chips on almost any flop.

Re: AK in SB
 

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what makes you think this?

I would either min raise villain here (hoping to establish control and letting villain know I have a hand), or I would flat call and re-evaluate when i see the flop. I would prefer to reraise.

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What benefit are you getting from a min-raise? He's very unlikely to fold. It allows him the chance to go all-in, do you fold to an all-in? If he just calls and you miss AK then what do you do?

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am i willing to call an allin for 1/2 of my stack with AK? absolutely. What benefit are you getting? You are establishing control. I also said in my other post that i can see an argument for pushing, min raising or flat calling.

Re: AK in SB
 

My vote is for push preflop. My reasoning below.

1. Calling: The pot is already big, and you will have a very difficult time playing this OOP if your hand misses the flop (which will happen 2 out of 3 times). If you call this, the pot will be 1300, and you will have 3900 in your hand and your opponent will have 1900 chips. You basically have two options if the flop misses your hand: all-in or check (you will probably fold to a bet if you check).

2. Reraising less than all-in: Even worse. Now you've made the pot bigger. You practically obligate yourself to push the flop.

3. Folding: not an option.

4. All-in: The great thing about AK is that you can push it in almost any situation without fear. You have a lot of folding equity, and if you get called, it's almost always a coin flip. The times that you are up against AA or KK are countered by the times you are up against AQ or AJ.

A push increases your stack by 900 chips. A push establishes you as someone who will protect his blinds (make certain you don't show your cards if he folds to your all-in, or you will have wasted that benefit). If he calls, you have a great chance of doubling up.

The button has raised 3Xbb. If you are worried about AA or KK here, then you are weak-tight.

The best way to play AK is to use it as a club, when the situation is favorable. The worst way to play AK is to play it in such a way that you have to hit the flop in order to make it profitable.

EDIT: Just noticed that the OP is in the SB and not the BB. Doesn't change my opinion in any way.

Re: AK in SB
 

push

Re: AK in SB
 

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you prob have the best hand right now


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what makes you think this?

I would either min raise villain here (hoping to establish control and letting villain know I have a hand), or I would flat call and re-evaluate when i see the flop. I would prefer to reraise.

[/ QUOTE ]
he prob has the best hand against the wide range of hands that the original raiser could raise with.
raiser may have a PP but there is simply many more unpaird hands than PP's that would fit in the raisers range.seen as AK is the best unpaired hand,hence he prob has the best hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

OP states that there is no information available on the other players, that he has no reads.
So based on this alone, how is it you know what cards he has, or even what his range is? He raised, that's all.
This is a common mistake that inexperienced players make in assuming they can assign certain hands to a player without ANY information at all. He raised, let's not make snap judgements about what a player has based on incomplete data. In the long run you will come out a much better player for it.

AK is a very good hand, but a dog to any pair and a major dog to AA or KK. You can argue for a reraise or flat call here, possibly even a push.

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i know there are no other reads,but based on the position of the raise alone,his range becomes wider.
if you just walked in to the table,no information on any one,if you were on the SB,would your calling range for a raise that came from UTG be the same as your range for calling a raise that came from the button?

Re: AK in SB
 

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The button has raised 3Xbb. If you are worried about AA or KK here, then you are weak-tight.

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How do you know that the 3x raise doesn't represent aa or kk. Thats a standard raise that very well could represent those 2, but other than that i agree with everything you have to say.

Re: AK in SB
 

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[but other than that i agree with everything you have to say.

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ever?

Re: AK in SB
 

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How do you know that the 3x raise doesn't represent aa or kk. Thats a standard raise that very well could represent those 2, but other than that i agree with everything you have to say.

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no duh, of course it could be AA-KK, but it could also be like 100 other hands

Re: AK in SB
 

any position can have a monster or crap, but I understand you being more cautious from a UTG raise. That being said I still don't think you can say you are ahead of MP raiser based on his position and preflop raise alone.

Re: AK in SB
 

Cheers for your input guys, especially for your breakdown jcm4ccc. I would push this hand every time, I was trying to remain impartial (didn't do the best job) as I needed to confirm the consensus of opinion as I am using this in my visual perception study. I have another 7 of these hands I need to do this for, so any help you lot could give (when I get round to posting them) would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Jon