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I like limping here. You have three stacks behind you that should jam with a pretty large array of hands even after a limper or two. If raised I obviously re-raise all-in.

As silly as it sounds, if the pot remains limped and you flop top pair, you risk going broke against a wide array of hands but you also have an opportunity to double up against a weaker ace that no one would put you on. At this stage of the tournament with our stack I'm willing to take that risk.

Certainly a standard raise is ok too but we have an awkward stack size with which to play AK with after the flop.

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I've been taking this line more recently with reasonable success.

It allows for a limp re-raise which represents AA, but if you get called you are usually not dominated, and putting in the last raise is always part of my goal in any hand.

You must be carefull when it gets limped around and you will have to fold TPTK to heavy action, but Ax <K pays you off nicely in a lot of spots.

You also can avoid tying yourself to the pot OOP when you whiff.

I know some guys like Adanthar are good enough not to *always* have to fire a a wiffed flop when they were the PFR, and therefore keep the cost of the hand down, but often AK can cost too much when you are OOP and have more than 1 to act behind you and you feel that you *have* to take a shot on the flop because you were the PFR.

Also, if you do raise PF, get called and hit an A or K you rarely get paid off. If you raise AK PF and hit TPTK and get action you are often beat at this level.

Raising here is fine, but I don't think limping is as bad as many would say. Especially if you are comfortable with your post flop play.

In fact I would go as far as saying if you can play well post flop, you can make just as much (if not more) limping AK in EP as raising, and lose much less.

Regards,
Woodguy

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I really don't think AK is a good hand to try and double up with post-flop.

The idea that you will suck A9 into the pot, flop an ace, and win all his chips sure sounds appealing. The problem is that, if you're willing to get all your chips in after an ace or king flops, you're going to find yourself losing to 2-pair hands and the like a lot of the time. It's often difficult to tell whether someone is giving you action because they think their dominated ace is good or because they actually have TPTK beat.

Limping also lets all the suited connectors and all the other drawing hands into the pot cheaply, and these are exactly the hands that will end up breaking you when you flop TPTK.

The virtue of limping AK is that you may induce someone with AQ or AJ in late position to try and raise all the limpers. I guess it depends on the tenor of the table.