Deeper stacks, careful with top pair .. well ?

[jdl22]

He already demonstrated in responding to my post that he doesn't care about equity. Given that I haven't a clue what to say.

[sourbeaver]

NL is about made hands, big hands.

How often have you read that with TPTK you win small pots and lose big ones .. well raising AK preflop is just a nice way to build a pot to entice you to pay off hands that beat you.

I go quite slow with AK, except in cases like was illustrated here, against some fishy fishy fish (I woooonder where that fish has gone ?? It was a lovely little fish ! And it went, wherever I, may gooooo !).

[TheWorstPlayer]

OK, I will respond because I have calmed down a little now. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Raising preflop does not 'build a big pot'. Big pots are made on the turn and on the river. Raising preflop cuts down on implied odds. If you allow someone to limp with their 45s, they are getting something like 100:1. If you make a 4BB raise, they are getting 25:1. HUGE difference.

And AK is not a 'drawing hand' or an 'unmade hand' or anything like that. AK is two cards. It is the beginning of many powerful hands. A hand is made of 5 cards. OK, AA will always have at least one pair on the flop, and AK won't 2/3 of the time. True. But flopping one pair is not a great hand anyways. If you let 9 people limp in and you only end up with one pair, you most likely did not hit the flop as hard as one of the other people in the pot with you. Your AA is ALREADY probably behind. And if it isn't, then probably no one is going to call any bets and you will end up with 10BB. If you raise to 4BB preflop, however, the pot is the same size (~10BB) but now there is only 1 or 2 other people in the pot with you. There is a much better chance that 1 pair is the best hand now. And 2/3 or the time, your AK will become TP on the flop. That is not too bad. And even when you miss the flop, there is a good chance that the few other people in the flop also missed. So your hand is still the best hand, even though it was one of the times that the flop came without an A/K. Not only that, but if the one guy who calls your preflop raise has 75s and the flop comes QJ5r, it isn't too likely that he is going to be calling a pot-sized bet on the flop.

For all of these reasons, raising AK is certainly better than limping it and calling it a 'drawing hand' or 'not a made hand' or whatever is total bullocks.

[jonnyUCB]

Don't like your play on a draw heavy board. Even given your opponent he could easily get there on the river with double suited board. On a different board its not hard to see why your line is much more effective. Also the board is connected, JQ, JA, QA all have draws to a straight.

[joewatch]

Looks like you made out pretty good on this hand, but against a solid player you are going to be in big trouble.

In my book, AKo is a raising hand if you are checked/limped to. True, it is not a "made" hand, but heads-up it will often win unimproved (highcard A with top kicker.) In fact, if you raise preflop, you have a very good chance of winning without ever seeing the flop. By itself, this is worth making a 3-5xBB raise.

If you limp in with it, having many other players limp with you cuts down your odds of winning the hand drastically. You never know if you are up against a straight or 2-pair. By limiting your opponents with a raise, it makes TPTK much more likely to be a winner.

I'm not saying you should always raise though. Once in a while, if you are in the button/CO and it is folded to you, you should just limp in. When AA, or AK flops, that guy sitting in the SB with ATo is going to think his hand is best and it will pay off big for you. That's how you vary your play to maximize profits.

[tree_stump]

[ QUOTE ]
Villain not very good, 50 VPIP, 40 PFR on 15ish hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where's Bison? Haven't you ever had an orbit where you were just plain catching cards, and your VPIP ends up right around 80% with a PFR of about 60% after (gasp) 10 hands?

I'm not saying not to pay attention to stats, but 15 hands is certainly not a large enough sample size to determine that he's a "terrible" player based on stats alone.

Beyond that, I think you have to raise PF... Letting the villain raise and then check calling the whole way gives you no chance to define his hand... He could have AA just as easily as A5 or KT - and the check call means you just waste your money against those hands.

[thatpfunk]

Uh, this is just plain wrong. AK should be your 5th highest moneymaker.

[mosch]

It's possible that your post-flop play is so atrocious that you do better by playing it without pressure, but even then, your post-flop play would need to be heroically bad to make raising AK a loser play.

If that's true, your problem isn't that you're not raising ace king. It's that you're not figuring out how to handle play after the flop.

[gsyme]

PokerRoom's hand statistics put it right behind TT, which is interesting since ive always put AK higher than TT. But I can't think of a situation where limping with AK is not a mistake.

[thatpfunk]

My pt has it slightly above TT.