Strategic Question, what to do with A-K facing a reraise???

I lost a hand with A-K today and I'm just wondering how you all would of played it.

In the big blind I'm dealt A-K, two players limp one from early and one from middle position, another middle postion player raises to 5 times the BB, I reraised him 3 times his bet, which he thought about for a long time and finally went all in, essentially reraising me 3 1/2 times my raise.

This happened at a lower stakes table, not even $1/2, I thought for awhile and I began to think possibly he has AA or KK, but I thought he just as likely could have QQ, I think if it had been several hundred dollars I had to call I would of folded, but maybe not. Anyways I called and even though I paired my King and Ace on the flop and turn, I lost to pocket Aces.

My question is how many people would of folded A-Ko in that situation? I had only been at the table about 30 minutes, I had seen the player play marginal hands like K,J and A-8, but maybe he hadn't seen anything better than that. I had no reason to believe he had pocket Aces, but I hate to always assume players have junk, because it's how you get burned.

I haven't been playing too long, very rarely have I been in a situation where I had to call all my money with A-K and didn't feel good about it. Also does anybody know what the chances of having A-K and facing pocket Kings or Aces are??? they can't be very good can they?

Thanks for the feedback

[LImitPlayer]

You need to fold this to the all in re-raise. I dont play a lot of no limit but I wouldnt have re-raised him pf.

[stigmata]

Unless he's a maniac, you allways need to ask yourself, "why isn't this guy scared that I have pocket aces?". I think you need to find sound reasons to make this call.

Tourney or cash game? If cash game, how much did he have? If a guy has a full buy-in, chances are, unless he thinks you're stealing, he's not going to put it all in without aces or kings. Fold.

Thanks guys for the advice and feedback,

It was a cash game, The guy didn't have a full buy in, it happened at a 10 and 25 cent table. $25 would be a full buy in, he had about $9, I had about $25 (before the hand)


I did reraise him preflop, in fact he went all in on me preflop, I guess at this level I didn't give him proper respect. Figured he was some Yahoo! just throwing chips in for a wild bluff or overrating his hand. Didn't give much thought to Aces or Kings.

stigmata, I think that's the best approach, I'll do that in the future

Although I don't have Pokertracker yet, I can confidently say that, until recently, I lost more money with A-Ko than with any other pocket cards. they look cool, but are still a drawing hand (barring winning a pot with Ace hi, which won't be much of a pot anyway). The info I have heard is that a re-raise almost always means a pocket pair, and most-likely a high one. Using this theory, at best you were in a race, with approx a 47% chance of winning. At worst, he held A-A or K-K, meaning your were dominated. Early in my poker days (which wasn't very long ago) I played A-Ko almost like a pocket pair. I have recently reined things in a abit, and usually want to see the flop fairly cheaply with this hand. Usually a raise, but nothing huge. If I miss the flop, I lean towards folding to any kind of big bet or raise, because now I only have two cards remaining with the hopes of hitting one of my 6 potential outs. Of course this all depends on position, reads, and other info gathered, but that's generally how I do it. Oh ya, I suck, so don't listen to me.

[WhiteWolf]

Couple points:

When posting a hand, stop the action at the key decision point (here facing an all-in push to your reraise). Do not post what your opponent ended up holding - you did not have that info when you had to make your decision, neither should we when we try to analyze your play. Knowing the guy had AA here makes it really easy to say "Of course you should fold."

Now to the hand in question: of course you should fold. It really looks like he has a big pair here. If you "knew" he had QQ, you're a small dog but the money already in the pot would make it slightly +EV to call. However, you're a big dog if he has AA or KK. You're in a situation where calling is either slightly +EV or massively -EV. The +EV situation would have to be much, much more likely for calling to be correct here, and it does not seem that this is the case here.