AKo Preflop - Conventional wisdom is wrong.

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the flaw in my logic is that I have far less negative implied odds with AK than most players. AK has a ton of negative implied odds for most players, since they marry their tptk.

If you aren't good at getting away from tptk, then you shoulden't play it multi-way. As such, a big pfr might be needed. If you are good at getting away from tptk, then you can play it multi-way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really... I'll post some hands that I got stacked with AK in a multi-way pot. You tell me if you'd get away from the hand? Sound good? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I had one last night that I raised decent size with AKs got 3 callers. Flop came KK5... looks good to me, but unfortunetly someone flopped a boat. Almost lost my whole stack, but I smelled boat on the turn.

[FreakDaddy]

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.

[PokerFink]

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.

Same goes for UTG. Don't make an emormous raise to drive everyone out, make a standard raise and play the pot multi-way if you have to.

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

Same goes for UTG. Don't make an emormous raise to drive everyone out, make a standard raise and play the pot multi-way if you have to.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a big mistake imo. There are just too few flops that are going to be good for you, and when you allow a large range of hands to play against you, you're going to be drawn out on.

What are we considering an enormous raise? I mean if the table is folding around for 4x BB raise, then put in a smaller raise to get a little action, but you have to be cognizant of what hands are being called with what BBx raise.

[PokerFink]

An enormous raise would be something that is beyond normal for the table. Generally, that will be 6+ BBs.

Sure, when you're playing a 5-way pot, most flops aren't going to look good. But when you get a flop that is good, you will win 4 times more money than if the pot were heads up. How is this bad?

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
An enormous raise would be something that is beyond normal for the table. Generally, that will be 6+ BBs.

Sure, when you're playing a 5-way pot, most flops aren't going to look good. But when you get a flop that is good, you will win 4 times more money than if the pot were heads up. How is this bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[gulebjorn]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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?

[PokerFink]

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.

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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?

[gulebjorn]

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

[/ QUOTE ]
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.