Recently I came up to hand that probalby been discussed earlier and I got two solutions to this problem.

Deep in an tournament i got AK (o) and had 3 limpers when it came to me in BB.






What i did was to raise 9 times BB to get everybody to fold. But 1 callingstation didnt.

No cards helped me and I lost a lot.

The second solution is to treat the hand as it its: a hand that needs improvement and that Im in a bad situation with 3 payers left to act. And that is to check and fold if no A och K comes and fold to a medium to big bet.

Im going for solution 2 next time and think it is much better to play hard when Im last to act. Are you?

You may have some sdv here, and you’re not repping much anyway. Whatever bet the flop is usually betting the turn here as well. I think I just x/f the river while hoping it goes check/check from a passive V or a V that has AJ+ and is also happy to go check/check. His preflop range is going to be small-medium pair heavy and ace-heavy, or which you have very little benefit of trying to bet against.

Youre right i got som sdv and 6,33 odds but as I see it he cant have Ax when he Rr. Problably small-medium par (set?) or maybe a hand like A6. The flop gave him someting.

But what about preflop? Raise och check?

Always raise there for value, yes, and size it large to get 1 or 0 callers OOP. Folding the limpers out is a much better result than getting 3 callers. I would have went slightly smaller than what you did but that’s just nitpicking.

You can overcall with AK in certain situations but you never overlimp AK in any situation. Ever.

I got your message to raise preflop with ak but in BB your mostly always playing out of position and flop a or k 30%. When you C-bet and a V calls, the hand is over.

If you check preflop and A or K flops you got a okay (hidden) hand and can start betting the callingstation.

Anytime you raise AK you're more likely to miss the flop than hit it, that's not a good reason to not raise it for value.

If you had 28BBs, then you can just overbet shove pre from the BB. You have 160, though, so the only play is a raise of a large enough size to discourage going 5-ways to the flop. You don't overlimp AKo and make it a drawing hand 5-ways. That's a terrible play from tight-passive players and in the long run they turn it from a highly profitable starting hand into a marginally profitable one, at best. I'm not saying you're losing money by overlimping AK, I'm saying that you're not winning remotely the amount of money you would be if you raised it (compounded here by the dead money). Please try to understand the difference. It's the same as limping AA on the BTN in an unopened pot. Is it losing you money? Of course not. Is there a better option that's more profitable? Yes, absolutely. In poker, we should be choosing the decisions that make us the most profit. Just because we make a decision that's profitable doesn't mean it was the best, though, if a better decision exists.

Besides, the hand is never over when someone calls your cbet and you have nothing. In fact, there's not a single hand that you have 0% equity against on that board, even if your equity is in the gutter against some (like sets or AhTh).

Thank you very much for the replys and explanations HawkesDave.

Of, course to raise in this situation is most profitable. But how many times doesent you 3-barell as bluffs or find a A or K on turn or river and keep betting. Thats good. And right.

To a calling station on the other hand. If you start betting he will call, call and call all night. If you stop, he bets and you got nothing.

Wait till you got someting, if you got AK and get a good flop you can bet larger compared to average v.

Still, a raise is the right play in this situation. For a moment I was considering All-in. As he could have anyting and i know he was willing to call me postflop and outplay me if i stop betting, as happened.

look a amall pair how limps and don't wanna fold for a raise if Villain are a calling station how you said.