Hi,

I'm currently grinding it out at $5NL on stars, and feel like I'm improving having for some reason when I first moved up from $2NL to not play like I had been there but instead to just be an idiot as much as possible. Anyway, I'm trying to fix some of my undoubtedly many leaks, and I feel like AK is probably the hand I play worst out of all of them.

Obviously I should be raising if nobody has in the hand before me, but I never really know what line to take if someone has raised before me, or if I am getting reraised.

Of course it depends on the villain, but how would you suggest playing against different villains?

Normally if there is a raise before me I will reraise if I have position, and if I don't have position I'll call or reraise, with reraising becoming more likely the looser the villain gets.

If I am reraised, I really don't know what to do. I don't like raising as then more often than not you end up all in preflop with a hand that sucks against villain's range, or villain folds (which isn't too bad but I think is less common than ending up all in).

However it feels weak to just fold to a reraise preflop with AK, especially against someone who isn't a nit, and calling I don't like either because I don't think it's a profitable play (if you don't hit you have to give up, and if you do hit then most of the time you get action you're still behind).

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on AK at this level in particular, and microstakes in general.

PS Am talking about when villain and myself both have 100bb effective stack.