Common situations with AK/AQ

[ericlambi]

Situation 1: You raise from EP with AK/AQ and get a caller with position on you. You miss the flop and do a standard continuation bet (for me is usually 1.5x what I bet pre-flop). You get called and the turn does not improve your hand.

I hate this situation with a passion. Do you check/fold from here on out?

Situation 2: You raise from LP with AK/AQ and one or two early limpers call you. You miss the flop and one of the limpers bets 1/2 pot or less into you. Do you fold getting 3-1 with your overs? Try to raise them off of it? Call and see what happens on the turn? I hate this one too. My gut has always been to try and raise them off of it, but it almost never works. The few times they fold having bet into you with nothing are more than offset by the times you get blown off your hand by someone who was betting for value, and then there are the times you get called down with bottom pair by some donk.

I think this is at least somewhat dependent on flop texture. If the flop is very scary for your hand, it is a pretty clear cut decision in both situations.

[DJ Sensei]

1) If the flop contains some obvious draws that miss on the turn, I generally fire another 1/2 pot bet on the turn, which often takes down the pot. If they call again or raise, i'm done with the hand (unless i hit on the river, in which case i generally check-call a dangerous board (TPTK could be likely behind), or value bet a safer one (I probably improved to the best hand and will get paid off))

If the board does not have any draws, betting the turn is generally bad (unless villain has been known to call a flop continuation bet with just overcards), check-fold, or call a small enough bet that you're getting odds to draw for your 6 outer/other draws you might have.

2) Depends more on the villain. If he's tight-passive, i fold unimproved overcards on the quick. If he's more loose-aggressive, particularly after the flop, I might either coldcall and see what he does on the turn, or reraise ~3x his bet (big enough to mean business, small enough to get away from a 3-bet) to blow out probe bets/underpairs. This also is very dependent on flop texture. On a flop of unsuited rags, chances are you're drawing to 6 outs (or maybe just 3), and this is bad. On a mid-high flop with suited or connected cards (T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]), a hand betting into you has more chance to be a draw of some sort. I'd recommend calling, if the turn bricks and they check, you can probably blow them off of their missed draw with a 2/3 pot bet. Raising this flop is bad, as a draw will still call, a pair or better will too, and you're stuck with a bigger pot on the turn and don't know where you stand.