For a while I've really struggled with how to play AK under the following type of scenario, that happens fairly frequently in my games:

1/2

1 limp, weak tight player in HJ w/ $200 stack, who makes is $17 (major sizing tell), folds to hero in SB (covers) with AKo.

IME these type of villains have TT - KK here like 90% of the time with this sizing. Once in a while it is AK "who never hits" and wants money pre or AA "who always gets drawn out on" but so often this is TT - KK.

I've come to think that (kind of surprisingly) the best play here is just to fold. We rarely get paid when we hit our A or K, and because I have an aggressive image my opponents are never folding pre. Even worse if we flat there is some RIO because when we hit an A or K and they hit their set we're bound to lose a at least some.

It feels weird to be folding AK to a single bet pre, especially as my game has evolved and against the right 1/2 opponents I can be 3-betting a hand like T9s, but I really don't see a more profitable path. Am I off here?

I dont think so. Ive done some similar adjustment in my own games against passive very tight players with huge sizingtells when they are high up in their range.

But you got to be careful not let it become a habit to make huge folds like this. If you indeed have some fold equity, especially against 1010-JJ parts of their range it quickly become a 3 bet/stackoff instead of a fold. Like your reads about having no fold equity needs to be spot on is what i am saying.

IMO AK is a huge hand and should be played aggressively: IF we are up against wide enough ranges.

just flat and rep other hands if you need to
weak tight players with a defined range are a dream to play against postflop and we should be flatting AK some of the time pre anyways
if you're playing only to get paid when you hit you're playing weak yourself
do you think a weak tight player is never going to fold TT postflop? no they're overfolding that hand all day.

I would have to range my opponent on QQ+, AK before I go folding AK. I can understand not 3 betting in this configuration, but presumably there is some profit to be made either from flopping an A or K and he calls with a worse hand, or just from him playing predictably. If you find that he has a fold button, we can flat small/medium pairs and rep A or K high boards.

Bolded makes more sense to me than the prior.

I totally agree with the bolded generally and laugh whenever people are bashing the hand. I generally love it against the right opponents with lots of thin value out there and barreling opportunities!

If you can pin villain's range that tightly and he is raising that big then folding is fine. Particularly OOP when you will have trouble making money when you hit.

Deeper you can call with hands other then AK. Bluff when the flop has an A or K and go for value when you actually hit the flop. But with such a big preflop raise it isn't worth it.

This is one of the weird things you run into at 1/2. Villain's have such wildly different and specific ranges that the range of hands you can play profitably can be entirely different depending on who is in the hand.

So $17 is a chunky pre flop raise in live 1/2 but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's such a huge obvious raise that you're now insta mucking AK because they are that nutted. I mean c'mon. You would have to be 100% in your range analysis everytime. Even with the range of KK-TT that you gave you definitely have fold equity. I see TT-QQ folded pre to heavy pressure at 5bb and below live games regularly. QQ not as often but I've seen it. JJ-TT get folded pretty regularly though and players love to show what a great fold they think they're making. Even if you had zero fold equity you still have 41% from showing down with the best hand. We all get it.... You have PTSD from running AK into some big hands or bricking out but that's gonna happen from time to time you just have to deal with it. Folding it pre to an 8.5 bb raise however isn't what you should be doing.

It is possible to fold AK to a single raise, if the opener's range is tight enough. This is pretty rare. More often against a tight raiser you should flat and try to get some fish into the pot with weak hands. I'm also usually flatting AK from the blinds, instead of three betting.

Yeah it would have to be ridiculously tight and you'd have to be right everytime. With such slim odds of both being true each time I wouldn't worry too much about trying to find folds with AK pre for that amount.

The problem with not 3-betting here is when these villain types have AQ, AJs, ATs, KQs they never fold to the 3-bet.

^^ this comment and others make me realize that I think I really play in very unique games. Due to my geographic location the median age in my games is 60 - 65 and the villains I'm talking about never have KQ or AJ in this spot.

The most helpful comments are those that trust my read about the range of these villains. It's a real nit/rock fest. Second guessing that my read is off or transposing your games into my game and assuming ranges are wider is missing the point.

So if we make it 40 what happens ?
If he folds TT-QQ,AK we should 3b.

That being said there are 2 players to act and I'm not against giving up a dollar to get out of a sticky spot.

But if it's AK suited I think we need to at least flat. That's 46% against the raisers range if it includes AA. Can't fold that imo.

I used your KK-TT range and AK still has 40% equity against that range. So if they fold at all when you 3 bet you should be doing fine. If you want to just auto fold in these situations then do it. You definitely don't need anyone's permission.

Not sure this analysis is taking into account all possibilities.

Am I folding to a 4bet jam if I make it $50 (I assume not)? Again I have an aggressive image, so these players might just think they need to go with a lot of their hands. If they fold TT, but jam JJ - KK and the rarer AK/AA I just don't know how well I'm faring whether I call or fold to the 4bet vs. just giving up my $1 SB.

Not seeking permission to fold (heck, I'd love to be able to justify a raise... it is paining me to fold) but rather holistic arguments that accept my as the OP's description and pre-flop ranging.

If your playing the table as a whole this way it is pretty unusual. I mostly play at Parx and back when the poker room was in the race track building I would sometimes get close on Sunday afternoon when it wasn't football season. I would occasionally run into tables where more then half the players were paying more attention to the races then the poker and playing very tight.

Most of the time I'm picking out individual players that are this tight and they are the exception.

I mean it is not very uncommon for people to have nutted raising ranges in live low stakes no limit. That is really more than norm than the exception, especially in morning or afternoon games.

If we make it 40,which is effectively a min-raise, I don't think he's folding anything. And after flatting he's never folding an overpair on the flop.

I am never, ever, ever folding AK pre to a single raise 100 BB eff.- but it seems as if you should just trust your gut in these spots as you have more experience in your player pool than anyone here.

Who cares what anyone else thinks about it? Also, just fyi the way to crush a nitty game like this imo (12-15 BB/hr winrate) is not to play the same as everyone else, it's to play the opposite.