AK is the nuts

[cero_z]

Hi n1bd,

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Having read the comments here and chatted about it with some people, though, I am starting to think I was wrong and the chance of a premium hand is prohibitive.

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I have to jump in at this point. I was going to respond to some of the 1st few replies, but your rebuttal was excellent, and said most of what I was thinking. Now you're starting to be convinced by these guys, and I think they're wrong.

In hand #1, there is virtually no chance you're looking at AA or KK, for the reasons you mentioned. UTG would have to be a total idiot to play his hand this way if he held AA/KK, and even then, he'd have to be a total idiot who wasn't greedy. His raise is too small to be one of those hands. MP is good, and he played QQ well throughout the hand. If I were him, I would've called you with JJ or better, or AK/AQ. But this is because he can see what you can see: nobody is likely to have a hand as good as TT at this point, except you or him, who could have TT, JJ, or QQ exactly, but nothing better. His hand is as likely as AA to be ahead in this situation; just not as far ahead.

Your all-in raise makes sense with AK, since you want to win now, but don't mind being all-in against anyone at this table, since AA/KK is ruled out. As you pointed out, there's a lot of dead money in the pot right now.

I will make a play like yours in this hand with far less than AK, as long as I'm dealing with typical opponents, who won't usually call that much money unless they have a premium hand. The guy happened to have QQ; I assure you that most folks who go call 30, call 40 more pre-flop don't have anything close to that 90% of the time.

Hand #2 is obviously terrible, given how your opponent views you. You made a couple of mistakes, I think. When he made it 100, I wouldn't re-raise. Re-raising anything more than the minimum pot-commits you, given his small stack, and allows him to play his hand perfectly against you.