Playing AK from Early Position

[Aaron W.]

I skimmed through this thread, and I'm just going to cherrypick some quotes and respond to them all at once.

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Are we sure that raising AK from early position is correct even though all the books say you should raise?

...

Maybe it's correct against really weak players that will call the raise with crap, but not against better players that won't.

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Yes. I'm very sure you should raise. You need very specific circumstances to deviate from this default play because the amount you lose by not raising preflop is difficult to make up in postflop play. The sorts of situations you would limp involve opponents whe are

- Tight preflop
- Good hand readers
- Aggressive

In general, you won't find players of this type at most of the low limit online tables. You may find the occassional TAG, but most of the time you're trying to *AVOID* confrontations with him, so you'll want to raise and keep him out of the pot.

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But without a raise, I get to play a lot of hands against AJ or KT, or worse in them that would have folded to a raise. If I hit the flop, they will never fold and will call me to the river.

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Depending on the opponents, you may also get to play against those hands if you raise -- this gets you the best of both worlds. They will also call you down only HALF the time you hit the flop because the other half of the time you pair your unshared kicker.

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For example:

If I raise from UTG before the flop and get called, it's an obvious mistake for my opponents to call without something good (of course, some people do it). If they call and it's a raggy flop, it's hard for me to bet since the range of hands that should call my raise includes a lot of good pairs, and they're happy to have an overpair vs my AK.

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"Hands that should call my raise" is a very read-based assumption. And the fact that it's hard for you to bet the turn without a pair is fine. It seems like you have an entitlement affliction where you feel like you should somehow win the pot because you raised preflop and bet the flop. Poker doesn't work that way.

You've got no hand and apparently villain caught enough on the flop to continue (another very read-based assumption -- some players peel flops with absolute garbage). It's okay to give up the hand sometimes.

It's also not an "obvious" mistake because a player is not making a mistake to call your raise with a medium pair (based on his position and your cards). It's probably better for him to 3-bet you, but he's making money off that coldcall. This is more true if he's not afraid to bet/raise postflop and put you to the test.

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This question has nothing to do with the limits I am playing at these days or my results on the table. I always raise and I am burying my opponents. So I must be playing the hands well.

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You have to do some pretty stupid things to lose money with this hand. It's a very strong hand that almost makes money all by itself. There's a difference between playing the hand well and making money with it.

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I think people (including myself) have been simply assuming it is always right to raise from UTG with AK because it's a high value hand and because all the books say you should.

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You assume wrong. Experience came before the books, and it teaches that AK is a very strong hand that is worth raising UTG. Then those people who saw from experience that raising is the better play wrote it down in books to pass along to the rest of us.

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I put Bret Maverick (one of the best players) UTG against the "tough lineup" and gave him AKo every time. for 10 million hands he raised and for 10 million he limped.

His EV stats were +.519 raising and + .4345 limping.

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You should have run your sims against all sorts of tables to see how the EV changes (relatively) with the table. In general, I don't trust TTH for helping me to determine the "better" or "worse" plays.

[mojobluesman]

"You should have run your sims against all sorts of tables to see how the EV changes (relatively) with the table. In general, I don't trust TTH for helping me to determine the "better" or "worse" plays. "

I specifically ran some of my simulations against the tightest and toughest players available in the latest version of TTH because it's obvious to me that against weaker players that will call the UTG raise with less than premium hands I am way better off raising.

The results indicated that against most players you are better off raising both AKo and AKs. However, against the toughtest opponents you are better off raising AKo and limping AKs.

I believe I know why that's the case, but it's hard to prove because I ran millions of hands.

I rarely play on a tough enough table at the micro limits for limping AKs to make sense, but I intend to test this theory out as I move up the ranks.