“Why I hate AK OOP at micro stakes Full Ring”

Ok so this is not a “I hate AK UTG all the time” post. Let me preface by briefly talking about the importance of position, and then a disclaimer on why I love AK OOP at uNLFR.

Why position is important:
It’s more important than you may realize, and I’m just figuring this out. We all know it’s important because “you get to act last and see what everyone else is going to do first.” That’s pretty logical, and makes sense. But the most important thing to know is that when you play out of position, you will generally make less on your big hands, and lose more when you miss. You have to c-bet with air to find out if you have the best hand or not, and villains can fold their missed hands when you bet for value.

Now, why I love AK OOP.

Villains call too lightly:
This is a given, as to why AK is good even OOP. We’re 80% of the time ahead of their range, so we want them to call. And because their range is pretty wide, they will not be able to continue past the flop more often than not, and a c-bet will take down a lot of pots for us.

Villains are positionally unaware:
This is actually what causes them to call too lightly. An UTG raise means exactly the same as a MP raise to them: exactly nothing. They’re willing to call with worse aces, KQ/QJ/JT type of hands, suited kings, etc. Against villains willing to felt with top pair, we love that they disregard position.

Ok that’s pretty much all I could come up with. Now here is why I hate AK OOP, and at micro stakes, hate playing it for a raise.

The obvious “AK Line”:
We’ve all done it. Hell, when we have position, we even know exactly what it looks like when someone else takes it. You c-bet a board with middle/low cards and two suited because you’re supposed to, get called, the turn misses you. Ok, now what? Is he on a flush draw, or does he have 77 – JJ for an overpair? Check/fold because if not, we’re two barreling with air, which is literal suicide at uNL? Check/checks behind and we give a free card to a flush draw? Check/fold and let a 9 high flush draw bluff us off the best hand? It’s just too costly to find out, in my experience. Hell, I’ve even seen villains who call with 66 on a 24T board because we “obviously have AK”. We’re turning our positionally unaware villains’ (seriously they’re never folding overpairs since they never put YOU on a better overpair) bad play into the correct play.

Unprofitable on favorable flops:
You raise AK UTG, and the flop is ace or king high. Sweet! Value town!! I bet a little over ½ the pot! Villain folds because his 67 suited missed. Or because his pocket 4s missed the set, and the flop contained an ace or king. Granted, I am fully aware that this is not always the case; bad players WILL call in spots they shouldn’t, but in my experience, this is not the norm.

Villains who hit anything rarely fold:
They call too light. They call your UTG raise with QJ/JT, and flop a J on a two suited board. You bet, they call with top pair. You bet again because you reason they might be on a flush draw, they call again. You double barreled with air, and turned AK into a very unprofitable and losing hand. Congratulations. But in all seriousness, this is what we’ve all read and been taught right? To play AK aggressively from UTG? Or if not, you find yourself c/f a lot of turns because you missed, and you don't want to pay to find out if they have a pair or flush draw?
Or better yet is trying to get villains to fold on low paired boards. For example, you raise UTG with AK, they call, and the flop is 662 with two suits. You c-bet (because we’re supposed to right? Don’t want them getting a free card with 89, now do we??), they call. What do they have? Anything from 6x/2x to overpairs to flush draws to freaking ace high. Now you take the obvious AK line and check fold the turn. Great. More loss of profit for AK.

My proposition:
There must be a better way to play AK OOP at uNL. Maybe I just suck at c-betting. You know how you can get away with limping low PPs in EP/MP at micro stakes, but this is certainly not optimal for any other stakes? This is because no villain EVER is folding AA/KK when you flop a set. Your implied odds are huge. Maybe there’s a better way to play AK preflop at the micros. I don’t know. Maybe low paired boards are not good to c-bet at. Maybe when we miss we bet smaller or take a c/c line instead. I honestly don’t know. That’s why I’d like to open this for discussion/debate/you agree with me/think I’m an idiot for going against the norm/whatever. But surely our collective genius can come up with something. I’m just tired of playing AK UTG like it’s AA, when no one at micros knows the difference between an UTG raise and a MP raise.

And please, don't respond with anything like "lol standard raise AK every time UTG" or stupid crap like that. I didn't spend the last 20 minutes typing this up for nothing.

I guarantee you could c/f 100% of the time you miss and still make good money at micros with AK in position or out

raising builds the pot so you get bigger flop, turn river bets in

Well written.

I think what is done in EP is probably the least important of all your actions in FR. That doesnt mean its not worthy of discussion but I like to focus on the "business end" of the table.

Second, have you looked through PT over a big sample to see whats really happening from EP? Might not be as bad as you think.
Dont forget taking down the blinds is a fine result from EP with A high, even though you had the best hand 100%
Also you can still get position if the table is tight and the blinds are loose.

And finally its all about the postflop, that 9/3 setminer who calls you almost always folds the best hand on the flop when you miss, its also going to be obvious what he is up to when he starts spazzing out on the turn.
Likewise the calling station, whats his range? did it hit that board often? Its no crime not to c-bet and even OOP if a manic checks it back then chances are he didnt even have a draw so that turn c-bet should get a result.

My 2c.

I was asking myself the same question.

I usually tend to bet at a dry board, since i raised EP some people will give me some credit. I bet when i hit also.

The thing i ask myself is how do i keep pot control OOP. I bet at it when i hit cause i want to know where i am. If they raise me i normally consider myself beat, wrongly i suppose, since he could be on a draw or a bluff because nobody calls it a block bet anymore but a donk bet, giving you zero credit. With that in mind, i double barrel the turn if i just get called (if i hit at the flop or turn on a dry flop), if they raise me here, i 99% im beat.

With those lines in mind, i'm almost sure i'm losing value here. I want to change to a more pot control approach OOP. Like if i hit my TPTK, check call flop, and bet 2/3 at turn. What you guys think?

For post flop OOP AK play, how about sometimes chking (board dependent obv.) when you make your hand in a HU situation? This should help to balance out your cbets when you have air.

Obviously, PT stats are very useful here as well. If a villain is super tight 8/3 with a high FTC, you can feel more comfortable about cbetting AK (or any hand) with air.

I really do agree with what bottom set said about c/f AK when you're OOP and miss. There are so many players over playing hands like AQ, AJ, A10, A9, KQ, KJ, K10, K9 at the micros (and even SSNL) that you can make up what you lose c/f folding when you hit your hand. You add in the times the villain calls with UPs and you should show a profit.

Ultimately, I think a pretty strong case can be made for not cbetting AK OOP 100% of the time.

NP. Hopefully it gets everybody's wheels turning.

I agree AK OOP is a difficult situation. This is where really paying attention to your opponents comes in(or at least having your HUD setup right). Unless my opponent has shown a tendency to float often I'm giving up if my cbet gets called, AK UI is a small hand and should be looking to play small pots. There are obviously situation/players that you'll want to keep on firing and others where you shouldn't even fire the 1st shot.

Against an opponent who will mostly bet if I check the flop, I like to check-raise. A riskier variation is to cbet the flop and check-raise the turn. Both plays imply massive strength but also carry alot of risk. I don't use either as a standard line but against agrodonks it seems to work well. Could be just spewy fps?

I don't like ever limping AK unless the plan is to reraise.

Here's my take on your problem (and it's my problem too; AK is pretty much breakeven for me from SB through to MP1).

You know how we don't raise AQo UTG? Maybe you raise it, but I imagine you don't raise AJo UTG. The point is, if AK was a wildly profitable hand to play UTG, then we'd raise AQo UTG. Maybe we'd be able to raise AJo, or ATs, or whatever. I guess some people can, because they make excellent decisions postflop. But I can't, so I don't.

What I'm saying is this: Given being OOP sucks so hard that AK is somewhere near the bottom of our UTG opening range, we just shouldn't expect to make a lot of money with it in EP. AK is a great hand - my winningest non-PP, for obvious reasons - but being OOP just makes it difficult to win money.

That said, we should obviously strive to play better. Looking at which flops we cbet is a good place to start. But ultimately AK is never going to be massively profitable OOP.

I will give this a shot for the remainder of may and all of june, and see how my results fare.

Are you implying a c/f line as well? I imagine bottomset is probably right; AK unimproved with no draw vs SCs unimproved with a flush or straight draw is a slight dog anyways, and people almost never fold flush draws no mater what price you charge them.

Thanks for the replies so far guys, I figured this was a trouble spot for other people as well!

Are you going to c/f when you miss and have no draws only? If this is what you're planning I'd be very interested in seeing what your results are at the end of June.

That's the plan. I'm actually considering modifying my UTG opening range to just AKs and not AKo. I'll c-bet with straight draws, flush draws, and TPTK+, and c/f all else.

Will post results at the end of June!

I have similar problems in this spot at the micros, and it's really annoying.

I think hud stats are a major help when deciding if you should cbet. It's alot easier to work out if people are going to fold or not from their stats.

Also, check folding is not as bad as you think at UNL. If I'm against a spewing fish, their range is usually more likely to not fold the flop so I check fold alot. What I find important though, is that I haven't been exploited in this spot, because they are usually equally as unlikely to fold when you do hit. So, I loose two preflop raises but then make a raise and at least one pot sized bet.

If we are check/folding missed flops with no draw with AK, are we also check/raising when we flop top pair? Or do you think because of the nature of a level 1 thinking opponent (which is like 80% of all the micro players), they will not pick up on the "checks when misses, bets when hits" pattern, and so we can still play pretty straightforward in that spot?

Even when I happen to flop my top pair with AK I am checking some portion of the time. On a dry board against and agressive positional opponent I will check as much as 60-70% of the time. I am c/r'ing some of those times and c/c'ing some of those times. Always betting when you hit your hand sucks a bit. You have to think of how to mix things up and also how to also exploit your opponents mistakes. On the other side of the token, you might not be putting enough thought in on board texture and your opponent when you miss the flop. If the board comes 876 with a flush draw then I am MUCH less likely to c-bet than if the flop comes Q72r. You should be willing to double-barrel in good spots. You should sometimes bluff c/r instead of c-betting in good spots. There are lots of things you can do to increase the value of your AK OOP.

I don't think it should be that cut and dry. I think you just have to poker it up a little more. If we check we both can c/c or c/r. How often we should be raising or calling depends on the specific opponent and the board.

Against a no-brain player who doesn't read your hand then you just play straightforwardly. If you are playing against a calling station then stop stop c-betting. If you are playing against a reasonable player then you need to just mix it up so that your hand isn't face up so often.

Good input threads welcome back

Yea they will probably not pick up on this unless your doing it a lot with regulars. "Balancing your range" Is usually unneccessary and overrated especially at lower stakes. Its ok to play expoitably if your opponents aren't good enough to exploit you.

What bottomset said is right. If you get called by a passive player whos in position then dont cbet 578 two tone flop with the plan to give up unimproved.

Basically look for good boards to cbet (qxx, jxx) and boards where there are a lot of good double barrel cards.

It ok to c/f a flop as a pfr (It took me ages to learn this)

I think AK is a problem...

You hit the flop, or you don't

if you hit it, you make money

if you don't .. then you have to c-bet

or you are in late pos. and the kid raise before you.. What you do then on a 10c7s5d board?

I mean

You KNOW if the guy have hit this flop that you will beat him when the turn shows you an ace or a king,
OR you are fighting against trips


I have reall problems playing AK

Just ran a simple filter in PT: AK/AKs; fold flop with overs; bet flop with top pair. Solid profit from all positions except BB, SB breakeven. Nice.