A situation i struggle most with

[WichitaDM]

I have played 10/20 on pp and elsewhere for a long time and have been pretty succesful at however there is one situation i have always tinkered with and never felt entirely comfortable with.

If i raise with position preflop with AT-AK and miss the board completely is it standard to bet the flop/turn/river if they check to you. What if there is a player behind you? When do you stop betting, what if they play back at you do you just fold? I guess to be honest ive never quite understood what the average optimal play is for times you miss the board after raising preflop. I realize this is probably going to be very dependant on reads etc, but what if you have no read on your opponent how do you progress? Thanks,

DM

[waffle]

this is highly dependant upon your opponent and the board. each situation is different.

usually betting the flop is OK.

the turn is tricky. what is your opponent's hand range after calling the flop given the preflop action? what does your opponent put you on and how will he respond to a turn bet with different hands in his range? a check? this is a tough poker decision and it requires thinking [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

and usually checking the river is OK. if you are betting the river with ace high, what is the purpose of your bet? value? bluff?

edit: i wrote this post assuming HU in position.

[Nemmy]

Yeah, it is a bit read-dependent to me. If I act last, I will almost always bet if it's three low cards and they've checked to me, representing an overpair or trips. That works well if you've clearly played conservatively. If I'm first to act, I'd usually check. If I'm somewhere in the middle, it really does depend on the reads you have. Are your opponents big bluffers or tight players? Do they fold to bluffs a lot or always come over the top of you? Things like that. If you think you can steal the pot, go for it.

[WichitaDM]

lets say a very laggy player raises you on the flop/turn, how would you progress then, just fold, call or play back with A high assuming it was just hte 2 of you. The player bluffs some but could also easily have a hand.

[Nemmy]

Yeah, but he might consider bottom pair to be "a hand" on the flop. In any way, if he bluffs a lot, he probably doesn't have your ace high beat. You should call in that situation on the flop and see what the turn says about him. If you suspect he hit something on fourth street, I'd try a follow-up bluff to get him to lay it down.

[disjunction]

I think the problem with your reasoning is that you are not asking yourself whether you have the best hand. At some point in the hand, the score changes, I realize I am behind, and I have to change my gameplan and think about what I am "representing". But usually when it's checked to me on the flop, optimist I am, I think my ace-high is best with 1 or 2 opponents and a reasonable board.

[Nemmy]

Here is the math that I did:

You're playing AKs against two random hands. The board shows 3-7-2 rainbow.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>996,143,547 games 385.204 secs 2,586,015 games/sec

Board: 3d 7s 2c
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 36.2907 % 35.68% 00.65% { AKs }
Hand 2: 31.9980 % 31.45% 00.58% { random }
Hand 3: 31.7113 % 31.16% 00.59% { random }</pre><hr />

AKs has an advantage over two random hands to win. I'd place a bet here.