AKo Preflop - Conventional wisdom is wrong.

[Triumph36]

The original post contains a fallacy. Yes, when you flop an A or K, an opponent will need a hand better than a pair to beat you, but opponents generally stay in when they have an A or K, so they are more likely to flop two pair.

Pocket pairs are still calling, but if you're playing full-ring, they're not going to call your continuation bet unless they have overcards to the board.

With AK, I want to narrow the field because I think most hands that call are still dominated by me. What I do not want in are hands with six clean outs that could easily outflop me; J9 suited, 78 suited, 'deceptive' cards. Creating a 'multiway' pot with AK is exactly what I don't want, because it's going to cost me more money to find out when I'm beat, and I'm rarely going to win a huge pot or stack someone.

[soah]

AKo is a hand that makes top pair. And when very much money goes in the pot in NL, the only thing that top pair beats is a draw. In deep-stack poker, AK is not a big-pot hand. AK has great equity when it plays small pots, but when you try to play big pots with it you're going to find it running into better hands when it gets action.

AK is NOT like AA and KK, because preflop AA and KK are the nuts while AK is the 14th nuts. There's no such thing as getting too much of your stack in preflop with AA, but if you get a lot of money in with AK then you're almost always behind. It's just a matter of whether you're way behind or slightly behind. Postflop, AA and KK will flop the nuts more than 10% of the time. AK flops the nuts almost never. AA and KK still have a chance of catching a set on the turn or river when they've been outflopped. It may not be much, but a little bit of equity in a big pot can go a long way... and that's equity that TPTK does not have against a set.

[BZ_Zorro]

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AKo is a hand that makes top pair. And when very much money goes in the pot in NL, the only thing that top pair beats is a draw.

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True, but it makes plenty of money out of hands it has outkicked if you don't overraise it pf. This is SSNL, not NL in general.

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AK is NOT like AA and KK, because preflop AA and KK are the nuts while AK is the 14th nuts.

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All the more reason not to raise it like it is.

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Postflop, AA and KK will flop the nuts more than 10% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ] 89% of the time they won't.

Look, I'm not saying AK is some great hand. But it is the strongest drawing hand in poker. What you want to do is:

1. Give yourself odds to draw with it
2. Build a decent pot as it has great odds to win.
3. Give weaker dominated hand a chance to make a mistake.

In my experience, most of the money from AK comes from postflop play where bad players will pay you off with weaker kickers. Give them a chance to do so.

[BZ_Zorro]

I had a look at the history for AKs and it was a big stacking (flush vs fh for $122) that brought the numbers down. Most of the rest are smallish pots.

Like I said I've had a couple of big stackings (about $250 total) with AKo so my numbers are a bit high, maybe 30% or so. Same with AA but opposite.

Regarding how I play AKo

I mostly raise 3-4 BB, sometimes min raise, sometimes 5 but not more, regardless of limpers. I rarely reraise with AKo, and fold it to strong pf aggression. I won't cold call more than 4BB, because it isn't playable on the flop the 2/3 of the time you miss, and calling then folding is very weak and a huge tell for when you do bet. Continuation bet maybe 20% of the time I miss.

I'm currently doing 6.84 PTBB/100 so that's not great. Maybe in a metagame sense playing AKo this way loses profit on big hands. Don't know.

Regardless it always has been one of the top four most profitable hands using the strategy above.

[Godfather80]

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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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The problem with making raises with AK designed to get the pot multi-way is you make it correct for lots of worse hands to call, hands that are only designed to flop big hands (small pps, sc's etc). You are setting the pot up for it to be CORRECT for them to call, every time. Remember a big rule in poker is to make your opponent make mistakes. Assume for a minute you aren't playing the standard lineup of huge donks, you will get murdered making the pot multiway with ak. If you hit your hand and they play well they are going to take at least 1/4 of your stack most of the time, if not more. This sort of thinking can work at the lower limits only because the players are so bad, not because it's a good idea. It simply will not work at higher limits.

You then mention your awesome implied odds v a10 and kq and j10. Couple points on that. First off if the pot is multiway and you start getting multiple callers past the flop, your hand is dead and you have 0 implied odds. If you managed to win a big pot with multiple people calling you they are huge donks and you could take their money in countless ways, playing a big multiway pot being one of the least favorable. Realisticaly if you feel you have implied odds v any of those hands the players are donks and you would much rather be heads up with them for a larger raise pre (which they would call) anyways.

Hope that helps.

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This makes the most sense to me and seems to validate the conventional wisdom behind playing AKo or AKs aggressively and trying to limit your opponents. Can someone smarter and more experienced than I contradict or support the above statements?

[Voltron87]

yeah man. only raise AA and KK. QQ is kind of weak since if there's an A or K you dont know what to do! and that happens, like 35% of the time! WTF?!!?

Only raise with AA and KK. That way all your opponents know what you have and you'll never get cracked.

[BZ_Zorro]

Read the thread before posting [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[BB_Specials]

Here is a good example:
(Sorry about the lack of conversion)
Dealer: Hand #145318673
Dealer: tazar posts the small blind of $1
Dealer: cymonkey813 posts the big blind of $2
Dealer: <font color="red">You have been dealt [As Kh] </font>
Dealer: Silly Goose folds
Dealer: Arlando folds
Dealer: RoCo raises to $7
Dealer: AceOrBust folds
Dealer: Bob Rhodes calls $7
Dealer: vegassun10 folds
Dealer: xcmtbiker calls $7
Dealer: tazar folds
Dealer: cymonkey813 folds
Dealer: <font color="red">The flop is [Kc Jc 2s] </font>
Dealer: RoCo bets $10
Dealer: Bob Rhodes raises to $25
Dealer: Arlando is sitting out
Dealer: xcmtbiker calls $25
Dealer: RoCo calls $15
Dealer: <font color="red">The turn is [4s] </font>
Dealer: Arlando has returned
Dealer: RoCo checks
Dealer: Bob Rhodes bets $100
Dealer: xcmtbiker has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: xcmtbiker calls $95.80, and is all in
Dealer: RoCo folds
Dealer: [b]Bob Rhodes shows [As Kh][b]
Dealer: xcmtbiker shows [Qs Kd]
Dealer: Uncalled bet of $4.20 returned to Bob Rhodes
Dealer: <font color="red">The river is [3s] </font>


Dealer: Bob Rhodes shows a pair of Kings
Dealer: xcmtbiker shows a pair of Kings
Dealer: Bob Rhodes wins the pot ($287.60) with a pair of Kings
Dealer: xcmtbiker is sitting out


AK vs KQ vs AJ
AK has both hands dominated and the marginal KQo would likely folded if I had reraised to narrow the field preflop.

[PokerFink]

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This makes the most sense to me and seems to validate the conventional wisdom behind playing AKo or AKs aggressively and trying to limit your opponents. Can someone smarter and more experienced than I contradict or support the above statements?

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The above statements are geared towards higher limits. If you are playing NL600 or whatever, then they are 100% correct.

This forum is not for high stakes. Therefore, you can't apply highstakes advice to it. The simple truth is that most of our opponents ARE donkeys, and we have to adjust to play donkeys.

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In my experience, most of the money from AK comes from postflop play where bad players will pay you off with weaker kickers. Give them a chance to do so.

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Exactly.

[TheWorstPlayer]

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Dealer: Bob Rhodes bets $100
Dealer: xcmtbiker has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: xcmtbiker calls $95.80, and is all in


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the marginal KQo would likely folded if I had reraised to narrow the field preflop.

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No.