Turns out my biggest overall loser at 10NL is AK, by a wide margin. Clearly I'm doing something wrong with the hand, so I'm going to post a series of them for advice.

Here's the first one. Villain had only recently sat down, so no relevant reads yet.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (CO) ($7.38)
Button ($2.49)
SB ($2.19)
BB ($10)
UTG ($10)
UTG+1 ($15.73)
MP1 ($6.62)
MP2 ($7.98)
MP3 ($5.32)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K, A
3 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, MP3 calls $0.10, Hero bets $0.40, 3 folds, MP2 calls $0.30, 1 fold

Flop: ($1.05) J, A, 5 (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $0.70, MP2 raises to $1.40, Hero calls $0.70

Turn: ($3.85) 4 (2 players)
MP2 bets $1, Hero calls $1

River: ($5.85) 4 (2 players)
MP2 bets $2, Hero calls $2

Total pot: $9.85 | Rake: $0.65

Against a complete unknown I'm probably 3b/get it in over the check min raise.

I also raise to .5 PF and bet $1.05 @ $1.20ish on the flop.

Raise to .60 PF. AK plays much stronger against a single opponent. It also plays quite well when everyone folds to your PF raise.

I raise to .5 preflop, I bet at least .8 OTF as played, and I'm 3betting the c/r and getting it in vs this opponent. He doesn't have a full stack and limp/called pre so he has a ton of draws and worse pairs in his range.

So there are enough draws in his range that I shouldn't be too scared of the min check-raise? Wouldn't you expect to see a bigger raise with a draw, i.e., a semi-bluff raise?

From now on I'm going to respond to every post in-depth, so prepare for tl;dr.

First, buy in full and use the auto top-off feature. This will increase your implied odds.

Your pre-flop raise needs to be bigger. A good rule of thumb is 3-4bbs + 1bb for each limper, but with multiple limpers you can raise add a couple bbs on top of that. $0.60 or $0.75 seems about right, depending on what you know about the limpers and players left to act. AK is a strong drawing hand that's probably ahead of a limper's range, so we're happy to either: a) get more money in the pot as a favorite, or b) pick up the pot now. This will force you to make your cbets bigger, but you'll also win more when your opponent hits a worse hand.

After MP2 calls, we should put him on a random limp/call range, something like Ax, pps, any two cards above 10, and some scers. His stack size and play so far imply he's probably not strong, so I would plan to stack off with TPTK barring some freak flop and to maybe cbet medium flops depending on the texture. Hopefully you can get him to fold a bricked pp, but you're going to be checking behind a lot when you miss because you're in position and his range is huge.

Yay, we hit!

On the flop you should bet more for several reasons:
1. You have a strong hand relative to an unknown limp/caller's range at 10nl.
2. MP2 could be drawing and you need to charge him for the privilege.
3. Ax hands will pay you off.
4. Scare cards might turn, minimizing your wins.

However, there are several other considerations:
1. If you bet larger here you'll need to cbet larger with missed hands. However, since you would limp pps and scers behind, I can't imagine what missed hands you would be playing in this position. Also, the texture of the flop isn't one to cbet against randoms, so I think you can ignore weighting your ranges in this specific situation, especially because it's 10nl and your opponents essentially play blind.
2. Some hands in his range do beat us, namely AJ, A5, and 55. However we're ahead of A2-A4, A6-AT, AQ, KJd, QJd, JTd, all of which will probably call a bet.

I would bet around $1 to cover my bases and get more money in the pot. Then he min-raises us, lol. This is a tricky spot because min-raises used to mean huge hands, but I haven't found that to be true any more at uNL. I'm still looking to ship it here because:
1. It's likely he overvalues TPMK.
2. If you call what turn/river cards will get you off your hand? If he raised you can slightly discount the possibility of a draw, although most of the draws in his range are combo draws. Either way, a 'bad' turn cards suggests you could have raised on the flop when you were ahead.
3. You can't fold in this spot, the pot will be ~$4 and he'll have ~$5 behind. Folding later in the hand would probably be a blunder considering the odds you're being offered.

Let's narrow his range a little bit and look at how we're doing. Let's say he takes this line with: AJ, AT, KQd, KJd, QJd, JTd, 55.

Hands Pot equity
AJ,AT,KQd,KJd,QJd,JTd,55 42.44%
AhKc 57.56%

You're a favorite, and we can assume he has AJ less often than the other hands because he might have raised pre-flop.

I pot it and pray. If you're crushed take a note and adjust. (:

If you're not going to raise, turn and river are fine as played. His min-raise/bet/bet line looks strong, so I'm fine with just flatting both streets.

Hope that's helpful!

That just may be the most helpful response anyone has ever posted to one of my hands...

Can you explain what you mean by this:

Sure!

@ Flop texture: we can assume unknowns are playing high cards, mostly two cards above ten and Aces. When you're in position with a hand that missed, such as a medium pocket pair, cbetting high card boards tends to be dangerous because your opponents play a huge range of high cards and usually refuse to fold. A good flop texture for cbetting AK is something like J34r, where they are unlikely to have hit, rather than AdJd5h, where they probably caught a piece of the flop and at the very least have some kind of semi-draw.

@ cbetting ranges/our opponents are blind: you should bet similar amounts when cbetting and when you hit the flop to disguise the strength of your hand. I said 10nlers are 'essentially blind' however, to suggest this is less important because they're not paying attention to what you do anyway, so you can get way with vbetting large and cbetting small.

@ The application of flop texture and cbetting ranges to this hand: in this case you would have limped behind pre-flop with pps and scers, and the hands you raise all hit this Ace high flop, except KK/QQ which you probably wouldn't cbet. Because you did hit, and the board is wet, there's not much you can do but get money in ASAP if you think you're ahead. One of TPTK's weaknesses is that it forces you to play straightforwardly, which is exemplified here. So my discussion of 'flop texture' was more of something to keep in mind, but in this case the strength of your hand forces you to play a certain way.

This CoTW on cbetting should be a helpful guide:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...etting-447771/

I hope that was helpful. Feel free to ask me to clarify anything, I know my writing can be kind of confusing sometimes.

I used to have big problems with AK, but I started folding to 3bets by tight players when I was oop pre-flop and since then things have been good. (:

Let my boil this down further because my last post was all over the place.

Translation: because the flop is and contains high cards (with emphasis on the Ace) it is likely an unknown limp/caller hit some part of it. Normally you'd check sometimes with good hands, or make other range consideration when bet sizing. Here, however, you won't be cbetting with missed hands, and the wetness of this board means you can't check the flop. At a certain point this will become a leak because you're broadcasting to everyone with half a brain exactly what two cards you have. Thankfully, people at 10nl have less than half a brain.

Also, read this article on evaluating board textures.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...exture-442027/

It sounds like you're saying that I'm basically in a catch-22 here. I have to CB because I don't want to give a free card, but by CB'ing I'm basically telegraphing my hand. If he's paying any attention, he knows I'm likely on AK/AQ here, which gives him a range of options for playing the hand (try to rep a set, semi-bluff a draw, continue with a marginal hand and try to rep a flush if it hits, and so on).

Yes, it's an uncomfortable spot, but everyone at 10nl is terrible so you can telegraph your hand without worry about it too much. These are good things to keep in mind so you develop a solid style, but MP2 is a non-full stacked random who you can just own playing on auto-pilot. Even if he doubles up now you'll probably stack him later. (:

So, out of curiosity, what did he show up with here? Some total bs probably lol.

KJdd, flopped 2ndP+NFD and hit the flush on the end.