Figured I have been bleeding tons of money on one particular hand, AK. Just want to get some kind insights and advices on how to approach this hand generally.

I know every hand is different, but my understanding of AK is 1) its a top 5/6 starting hand in holdem, should be a open/3bet/4bet in most occasions. 2) Majority of its value comes from opponent's folding equity 3) You'll miss the flop 2/3 of the time.

I understand poker is a very situational game, but honestly at the micro to low stakes games like 1/3 or 2/5 that I play, I can't even recall the last time that I was a favorite when I get it in preflop with AK against smaller aces. Maybe that is more prevalent in tournaments or at higher stakes cash games, but in low stakes games, I just very rarely see people jamming or calling off all in preflop with AQ, AJ or some smaller suited aces, unless they're super short staked.

From an exploitative POV, if your opponent would never stack off with a hand that AK truly dominates, and more often than not when you get very aggro preflop, you're at best flipping, and absolutely crushed against Aces and Kings, even against two randomly unpaired cards, AK is only marginally ahead by 8-10%. Then what is the point of really trying to fast play this hand preflop? As a bluff preflop?

Even if you have the betting lead preflop, you'll still miss the flop 2/3 of the time. On low and medium boards, as the pf aggressor you don't have the range advantage anyways. People would tend to call or even make plays against you in such cases. Yes if you flop an ace or king, you could profit from outkicking your opponents if they hit top pair as well. But if you're gonna miss more often than not, where is the real profit coming from with AK?

Value from AK is how high up in value preflop and likelihood to be best by the river. Nothing more nothing less. Play better preflop and post flop and that’s where the real value comes. You block the two best starting hands. Bluff sometimes. Learn sizing.

One thing you have to accept about AK is that it has a very high variance. There are days where you will get AK hand after hand and whiff every flop. You will have to just check/fold or c-bet and check/fold the turn. There are also days where you hit your AK or everybody folds to your c-bet and it's easy money.

You are right that at low stakes it isn't a 4 betting hand. As you note, at low stakes when you get all in preflop AK doesn't do well. 3 betting ranges are generally tighter so include more hands that are coin flips or do well against AK. You will have to recognize when villain's range is wide but in general you don't want to be that aggressive.

A subtle point about the profitability of AK is that it makes your other good hands more profitable. When you raise with 99 and flop a set on a dry board villains won't just automatically give up when you bet. They know you can be c-betting AK and stick around for a street or two.

You should have a solid and aggressive enough image that when you c-bet medium or low boards villain will fold sometimes. Medium boards should hit hero also fairly often and on a low board nobody should have a significant advantage. Villains should not be able to make plays against you very often, if they are then you have other problems.

I love AK when sitting on my short starting stack of 66bbs in my 1/3 NL game.

I basically limp in with it from most positions (other than LP where I can typically raise an amount to comfortably stack off with TP postflop).

If it limps around, whatever, I quietly check/fold if I miss and otherwise play TP very cautiously in a multiway high SPR pot.

If someone puts in a raise, great, I then get to put in a limp/reraise, sometimes just shoving if there are enough callers / huge dead money, otherwise sizing so I have a PSB shove for the flop (thus guaranteeing I realize my equity plus I put all pocket pairs to the test and sometimes even get lol loose calls by dominated hands).

GlovesAK,especiallywhenshortstackingG

Random thoughts...

How I play AK somewhat depends on the stakes and stack depth. Playing 1/3 with $500 effective is a little different than 2/5 with $1k. The added stack depth and smaller proportional open size at 2/5 allows for more flat calling and 4B'ing less than all-in.

Not sure how we're whiffing on the flop 2/3 of the time. I thought the flop would have an ace or king 40% of the time. Even when we miss, we still have two overs, and we'll often have some draw potential, especially with AKs.

Aside from the ability to flop TPTK, we shouldn't overlook the importance of our kicker in spots where our opponents can have a very strong yet second best hand. Like, if the flop comes AAx or KKx, we're unlikely to get value from pocket pairs that didn't flop a boat, but we can get tons of value from worse trips that are just never folding.

Pre-flop, I tend to play AKs more aggressively than AKo. Not sure I can really explain why, beyond the obvious increased flush making potential. Maybe it's also because of the blocker properties post-flop, making AKs easier to play.

Pre-flop, I'll open any AK for a raise in a limped or unopened pot. I'll iso-3B any AK over a MP or LP raise when I'm on the button or in the blinds, but I'll play AKo as a flat call facing an EP open when I'm in those same positions. I like being able to show up post-flop with TPTK in a SRP.

In pre-flop jam situations, I'm more likely to jam or call a jam with AKs than AKo, but I prefer to 4B jam AKs over a 3B, if flat-calling is going to pot-commit me to getting stacks in post-flop. If my opponent 4B's, but not all-in, I'll call with AKo or AKs when super-deep. If my opponent 4B-jams, I'm only calling with AKo when the jam is for a shorter stack.

At the end of the day, AK is just the nut no pair. But to keep that in perspective - even AA is still just one pair. We shouldn't over-value or over-play AK any more than we should over-value or over-play one pair, even when it's AA.

AK is very difficult to play at 1-2 because people limp and call so wide and when you raise they assume you have big cards much more than pairs, so you won't get paid off much from 88 on K72 but they might even raise if you bet on 752 (and if you don't bet they assume 88 is the nuts, and will often even bet on a turn K).
Also with all of that limping when they raise they aren't doing it with A5s or even A9s more of the time, so 3bets aren't that great into a mostly limp but sometimes raise range.
Dito. most people aren't 3betting your opens with AQs or A5s, so you are either flipping or crushed.

But on the other side playing AKo 6 ways also sucks at anything but the lowest SPRs, and I've seen a lot of other players just call (because they only 3bet QQ+) and then see K82 and never find the fold button.


This is very wrong though, when you have 58% vs. JTs that means you are ahead by a lot more than 8%.


I've shoved AK into AA and KK more than most people on here, and I'm still not sure the best way to play them in a random 1-2 game.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...ak-pf-1307434/

this thread which is in the best of stickys is worth a re-read. It wasn't actually a thread, it was a discussion in the old chat thread but Venice rightly decided that there was too much gold...particularly from Sol Reader...to be lost from the forum

i don't think he's still around and he wasn't always popular for his non poker views but Sol Reader was an absolute weapon. Crushes mid stakes live and online and his views are definitely worth reading and considering.

there's also some guest posting from the GOAT chat threader ILCD. his poker opinions are worth substantially less

probably 10 years ago now

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?

My understanding would be that we're much cooler with ending the hand preflop with AKo while we're a little cooler seeing a flop with AKs (due to it playing better postflop). But obviously stack / blah blah blah dependent.

GcluelessNLnoobG

That makes sense in theory, and if we're in a game where people are over-folding to 3B's, I would agree that's a good approach.

But if we're in a game where people are cold-calling 3B's or double-flatting too frequently, just trying to see a flop before they fold, I'd think we should reverse the strat.

It seems like the baseline assumption is that we're playing against opponents who aren't continuing too frequently facing a 3B.

Also keep in mind that in a lot of smaller stacked / BI LLSNL games, a 3bet is often stack committing (if not already for stacks), so yeah, in that case having AKs is better than AK (but kinda moot as we're just getting in stacks / committing ASAP with both).

GcluelessNLnoobG

The underlying assumption here is that if we 3bet AK we are committing our stack. It is possible to 3bet/fold or 3bet/call as well 3bet/5bet shove. The key variable is stack depth, obviously, which in live poker really is variable (i.e., it's rare to see all players, let alone a few, with exactly 100bb). Also I would say, as a rule of thumb, that players at live low-stakes over-defend versus 3bets especially from OOP, which means that you'll find yourself in a +EV situation versus worse Ax or Kx often (not to mention how you may win with a better A high at showdown because your opponents don't know how, or are unwilling, to turn their hand into a bluff). Much of the issue here is that some believe they must always 3bet/4bet AK rather than accepting that this is a theoretically sound default position. Sometimes you can flat with AK IP to a single raise (rare), you can certainly just call a 3bet OOP when deep, and, of course, there are situations where you're against opponents who have a very narrow 3bet/4bet range, and, yes, you can fold AK in these circumstances, if you're confident in your read/profiling. I don't know, accept you've been dealt a top 5% hand and take advantage of the opportunity.

Suited hands give you more opportunities to bet flop and barrel turn

True enough, but we're expecting to realize our equity better with AKs, so I don't mind raising with it pre, whereas it's harder to realize with AKo, so I don't mind playing a smaller pot with it, and a more disguised hand.