Quote:
Originally Posted by venice10
For the TLDR crowd, by no means is AK an auto 3/4 bet hand. That's why you're losing money with it. In low stakes where people don't want to fold a hand pf if they have already put money in, calling a raise is often a better option. The other problem is that everyone puts you on AK. So they fold if they can't beat AK and take you to the cleaners if they can post flop.
Skimming that Sol Reader thread, I spotted this, which makes me wonder if I'm looking at AKs vs AKo the wrong way:
"Also to note, in many circumstances, I am more willing to 3bet AKo than AKs, because AKs's relative advantage in 3betting vs flatting is lower, and I want AK in both my flatting and 3bet range, and a good way to tweak this is by flatting AKs more often, and 3betting AKo more."
Maybe you or someone else can explain the flaw in my thinking.
My thinking has been that many players at low stakes tend to be somewhat inelastic when it comes to responding to pre-flop raises once they've entered a pot, either by limping or calling a single raise, such that they're continuing with too wide a range when facing a 3B.
If that's true, and I think it is, they're not folding enough to 3B's to make me want to bloat the pot by 3B'ing AKo. Without really knowing how to quantify the EV difference of AKs being more playable post-flop, 3B'ing AKs just seems better.
With AKs, we end up flopping better more often, allowing us to semi-bluff and value-bet more when we get there, especially when we turn or river a flush on a two-tone flop, and our opponent was either chasing a worse flush draw, or bluff-catching with medium value. We can get so much value from our opponents when they're giving us every combo of AKo that missed, and all the over-pairs.
With AKo, we often end up in spots where we might have a blocker to the nut flush, but we're just pure bluffing on a three-flush board, and almost never getting paid on a four-flush board. Very often we're bluffing into someone who just doesn't believe us and isn't folding 2P, much less anything stronger.
Is all that wrong? What's the reasoning behind preferring to 3B with AKo?