AKo Preflop - Conventional wisdom is wrong.

[FreakDaddy]

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He's saying that when you have AKo on the button and everyone and their mother limps to you, you shoulden't make an emormous raise to drive everyone out. Make a medium raise that all the hands you dominate will call, and play a multi-way pot where you still have good equity.

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Let's think about what could happen.

0.50-1$ blinds. You are on the button. 7 limpers. 8$ pot.

Scenario 1: You raise to 4$. BB calls with 77. UTG folds. UTG+1 calls with JTs. MP sees a big pot developing and calls with 78s. CO sees a lot of money in the middle, thinks: what the hell, and calls with T8o. This is a 25$ pot against 4 opponents.

Second scenario: you raise to 8$. BB calls with 77, rest folds. This is a 20$ pot against one opponent.

Guess which one gives you most equity?

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I was about to post the numbers... and will if anyone wants them.

[BZ_Zorro]

There are more streets than the flop. If you're skilled postflop you'll make most of your money from AQ, AJ, KQ calling you off to the river. This is SSNL.

If you're not you'll lose a ton. The KK5 hand is a bit disingenuous imo. Any raise and 55 will still be calling and stacking. How about you stacking KQ/KJ here?

[FreakDaddy]

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The problem with your scenario is that no one is calling with dominated hands.

How about you raise to 4, and JTs calls you as well as KQ and AT. I sure as hell like my equity and awesome implied odds now. If I raise to 8, those hands fold.

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Perhaps if you had some numbers it would help bro...

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

1,712,304 games 0.125 secs 13,698,432 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 73.6946 % [ 00.71 00.02 ] { AcKd }
Hand 2: 26.3054 % [ 00.24 00.02 ] { AhJs }

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

1,086,008 games 0.015 secs 72,400,533 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 37.8139 % [ 00.36 00.02 ] { AcKd }
Hand 2: 19.7212 % [ 00.18 00.02 ] { AhTh }
Hand 3: 24.2760 % [ 00.24 00.01 ] { JsTs }
Hand 4: 18.1889 % [ 00.18 00.00 ] { KsQd }

If you raise the pot you're going to have almost = dollars to begin with, but a much more pot equity. Do you understand how these two numbers relate in terms of long term results?

[PokerFink]

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Your math is off bro. If you raise and get one or two callers, it should be almost the same money in the pot. What I thought you were saying is to allow more people in so that when you do hit, you'll take down a larger pot, of course providing that someone didn't hit bigger than you.

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I was trying to say that a pot with 5 players pays bigger than a pot with 2 players for the same pfr size. I guess I screwed up how I said it.

I agree that a 3-way pot for a large pfr is better than a 5-way pot for a small pfr. A large, 3-way pot is ideal, but more difficult to accomplish.

[gulebjorn]

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The problem with your scenario is that no one is calling with dominated hands.

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There are only a few dominated hands that will call you: AQ, AJ, AT, KQ and KJ. There is a whole world of non-dominated hands that would be more than happy to take those implied odds against you.

[FreakDaddy]

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There are more streets than the flop. If you're skilled postflop you'll make most of your money from AQ, AJ, KQ calling you off to the river. This is SSNL.

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How's this, I'll assume that you're statements are true and I'll look forward to you posting the results on here for us to look at. As it stands, how about everyone post their AKo AKs numbers and we'll compare playing styles?

[BZ_Zorro]

Done, give me 10 mins.

[gulebjorn]

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Hand 1: 37.8139 % [ 00.36 00.02 ] { AcKd }
Hand 2: 19.7212 % [ 00.18 00.02 ] { AhTh }
Hand 3: 24.2760 % [ 00.24 00.01 ] { JsTs }
Hand 4: 18.1889 % [ 00.18 00.00 ] { KsQd }

If you raise the pot you're going to have almost = dollars to begin with, but a much more pot equity. Do you understand how these two numbers relate in terms of long term results?


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And in a 4-way pot, this is pretty much your best possible scenario. Two dominated hands and some suited broadway connector calling you... More often than not, you will be up against small pairs/SC's/utter trash, and that's where the real trouble is at.

[FreakDaddy]

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I'm really not sure what your comment is about exactly. Are you advocating that you shouldn't raise pre-flop with AK? You're not entirely clear, so I'm in the dark a bit trying to make sense of your presumably insightful post.

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I'm not a clear writer so apologies for that. I'm just throwing out some ideas and getting feedback, it's not meant to be 'insightful'

What I'm saying is that AK is a good hand and your objective preflop is to build a big pot more so than limiting the field. The general consensus seems to be that you're raising with AK primarily to limit the field and get one or two callers (or be happy to get the blinds/limps). In my post I (attempt) to discuss why this is not optimal.

Hope that makes it clearer.

<edit> I'm saying you should always be raising AK, just not overraising to drive almost everyone out as some other posters have stated. I agree, getting 6 callers is absurb and -EV.

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Ok, thanks for the clarification. I understand what you're saying now. Thanks for raising the topic. I hope some people learn about pot equity and it relationship to EV through this thread.

[FreakDaddy]

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Hand 1: 37.8139 % [ 00.36 00.02 ] { AcKd }
Hand 2: 19.7212 % [ 00.18 00.02 ] { AhTh }
Hand 3: 24.2760 % [ 00.24 00.01 ] { JsTs }
Hand 4: 18.1889 % [ 00.18 00.00 ] { KsQd }

If you raise the pot you're going to have almost = dollars to begin with, but a much more pot equity. Do you understand how these two numbers relate in terms of long term results?


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And in a 4-way pot, this is pretty much your best possible scenario. Two dominated hands and some suited broadway connector calling you... More often than not, you will be up against small pairs/SC's/utter trash, and that's where the real trouble is at.

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Agreed. I'm just using his example.