This situation came up 3 or 4 times during my trip in Vegas. 3 times, I cbet the flop...and then check fold on the turn. It was very discouraging and unprofitable. Nobody seems to be folding to cbet..

So one time, I checked the flop, check/call the turn... and I bet the river when blank hit. I lost that one too. I just can't seem to play this A/K correctly...

It got so discouraging, I sometimes would limp with A/K.. I figure I'll bet flop if I hit..if not I'll fold. Until I get a better handle of how to play A/K, this latter strategy may cost me least amount of money...

Please advise.. thanks..

No need to look past here.

Just 3-barrell river shove with ak; easy game

You need to drop down to 1/2nl until you can look back at this post and say, "Man, the answer is so obvious, I should have..."

You simply aren't ready for 2/5nl. There are some fundamentals that you are lacking. You are approaching your decisions at too superficial of a level.

The biggest problem in poker (especially the live game) is that players are in such a hurry to move up, there is a certain amount of "snobbery" in the poker room as we love to look down our noses at the lower limit games...

I started a thread in the poker theory section talking about when you are up against a villain that is better than you.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...n-you-1163522/

In your case, its not just a villain its an entire table/game/level...

Lastly, I wanted to tell you that I often drop down to play 1/2nl for various reasons. When i'm playing bad at 2/5nl I find that a couple of days of 1/2nl really helps clear my head and put my LAG monster back in its cage. I should also add that dropping down and playing 1/2nl a few days a month has been instrumental in me attaining some poker epiphanies and having a deeper understanding of the fundamentals that I "thought" I already knew...

Do you have poker stove downloaded on your computer?

Anyways, not to write a book here, but my spidey sense tells me you need to revist ranging, equity, position, betting, image and how all of that is impacted by board textures...

Its a never ending cycle and once you've gotten a better handle on it, you will be able to answer your own questions.

And i'm glad to see you in this forum. Make sure you are reading and re-reading the threads, using the search function.

Also, you need to be doing work off the tables. One thing I found helpful when I was struggling with a lot of the fundamental concepts was to deal a table with all the cards face up, and then to play all the hands so I could get a sense of how boards might play out. This was very helpful for me learning how to develop reads.

Then there is the poker stove aspect of a situation which I can not stress enough. It is really important for you to take troubling hands/situations back to the bat cave, throw them into poker stove to and do a simple equity calculation to see if you made the correct play or not...

Anyways, you've got to rebuild your foundation and its best to do that while you drop down to 1/2nl and rebuild your game.

good luck...

Just wanted to say good posts in here by dgiharris.

Get out of that game, OP, unless you really don't care whatsoever about the money.