preflop raise?

[Patrick Bateman]

When someone raises pre-flop in a regular game (not supertight, not superloose, not shorthanded), is it proper to first put them on AK before they show you otherwise? I say this because it is more likely that they would have Big Slick as opposed to a pocket pair (just b/c there are more combinations for AK).

What do you all think of this?

[Dynasty]

Doing that will cost you a lot of money. You need to put your opponent on a range of hands worthy of a raise.

[astroglide]

statistically speaking it is certainly the most probable, and i'm sure ak/aks is the most raised hand in holdem. with a complete unknown, it's safe to assume PREFLOP that this is what they have. you have to use your judgement of them and their action after the flop to figure it out from there.

[astroglide]

p.s. nice name - that's my favorite movie/book

[Patrick Bateman]

Thanks--the movie and book kick SO much ass.

Immediately putting unknown people on AK when they raise is very bad. This is something that a lot of weak-loose players do. It fits the weak loose mentality -- they believe a person would only raise with a really good hand...but if it were AA or KK then they would have to fold their pair of 4's on the Q 7 5 flop. At the lower limits, you can often find games where there is little raising preflop. Games like this tend to be filled with old men that play every day and are easy to spot. Once you reach the middle limits, however, games like this are much less common. There are, of course, still players like this, but the fact is most people will raise with a larger variety of hands.

First off, the concept of AK is statiscally more likely than a pair fails against all but the weakest players. If a player will only raise with AA, KK, AK, or QQ, a pair is more likely than AK. There are 16 ways to make AK and 6 ways to make each pair * 3 pairs = 18 pairs. In this case, a pair is more likely. Only if a player only raises with AA, KK, and AK does this work, and even then it is only 16:12 so putting them on AK is not the best idea.

Secondly, most players raise with a much larger variety of hands. Their position, whether they are first in, and their agressiveness have to be taken into account when they raise. In the games I play in, the range of hands an average player has when open raising from middle position are something like (AKo-ATo, AKs-A9s, KJ, KQ, AA-88 {Disclaimer: DONT NITPICK THIS--THIS IS NOT EXACTLY RIGHT NOR IS IT WHAT I RAISE--IT IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, AND IT IS CLOSE ENOUGH FOR DEMONSTRATIVE PURPOSES} ) In this case they will have AK around 11% of the time. 11% is a bad read. After limpers, the hands that are raised are often different, but again, there are many hands raised not just AA, KK, and AK.

A raise *usually* means a pair or big cards. Big cards are statistically more likely than a pair for most cases. That's what you know when an unknown player raises.

-Glenn

[Glenn]

I said "the concept of AK is statiscally more likely than a pair fails against all but the weakest players"

I meant this for the case where AK is the only non-pair hand the player will raise. If a player will raise with other non-pair hands, the AK read is bad for other reasons discussed later in my post.

Good luck,

Glenn

I totally agree with Glenn. Position and whether or not you are opening have a lot to do with how you analyze a raise. The only time I would assume a raise indicates AK would be if it came UTG and even then it is often AQ or TT-QQ as well.

[budman]

No way. I would certainly consider that one of the hands my opponent could be holding, but I would put them on a range of hands. Hopefully you will get to see how a player acts in a number of situations and will then be more able to put them on a specific hand.

In my game, it seems players (even some of the best) will sometimes raise out of position with a hand as weak as 99 or 10-Js.