discussion piece, AK post-flop

You are holding AK, and you raise pre-flop. You completely miss the flop (i.e., at most, backdoor flush or straight draws). I was inspired to start this discussion by the guy who said he didn't know what to do with AK post-flop.

So, let's take some concrete situations:

Situation 1: you only had one pre-flop caller, who acts before you. He bets 1/2 the pot on the flop.

Question: what information would you like to know about the Villain in determining whether to fold, check, or raise, and how will you use that information?

Situation 2: you had a re-raise pre-flop from a loose player, which you called (or which you re-raised and he called). Now, he bets 1/2 the pot on the flop. What do you do?

Situation 3: same as 2, but he checks the flop. What do you do?

Situation 4: same as 2, but the re-raise pre-flop came from a tight aggressive player. What do you do if he bets the flop, and what do you do if he checks the flop, and why? What reads re: continuation bets would you like to have in making this decision?

Situation 5: you are on a table with multiple loose passive calling stations, who all call your pre-flop raises. Now the flop comes and one of them bets 1/2 the pot and gets 2 callers. What do you do? What reads would you like to have to make this decision?

Situation 6: same as 5, but one of them bets 1/2 the pot and one of the other loose passive players raises it up to 4x the original bet, and gets a loose passive caller. Any chance you would call or raise this, or is it an automatic fold? Why? What information would be relevant to this decision?

Finally, will any of your decisions be affected by whether there are 2 cards to a flush or 2 cards to a straight on the board? How about 3 cards to a flush or 3 cards to a straight?

I think you are thinking about this incorrectly. While it is true that these situations exist, there really isnt a concrete answer to them. How you play a hand, regardless of what hand it is, should be based on a number of things that you need to acquire while playing the game. Things like effective stack size, the opponents range, how the opponent plays that range, how likely the range connects with the flop, how much fold equity we have, weather our equity with overs is actually enough to continue, what villain perceives our range to be and how we play it, what level of player we have, etc. Its impossible to actually say "in situation 3 i would do this" because there are a ridiculous number of situation 3's who's reactions would vary according to which specific situation 3 we were talking about.

Originally Posted by JKDS

I think you are thinking about this incorrectly. While it is true that these situations exist, there really isnt a concrete answer to them. How you play a hand, regardless of what hand it is, should be based on a number of things that you need to acquire while playing the game. Things like effective stack size, the opponents range, how the opponent plays that range, how likely the range connects with the flop, how much fold equity we have, weather our equity with overs is actually enough to continue, what villain perceives our range to be and how we play it, what level of player we have, etc. Its impossible to actually say "in situation 3 i would do this" because there are a ridiculous number of situation 3's who's reactions would vary according to which specific situation 3 we were talking about.

He knows all this. Just because he is a new poster doesn't mean he's clueless. To me this looks like more of a thinking exercise based on the limited information that is given. Usually in poker we have to deal with limited information, so a post like this would be great to digest and think about when you are facing unknowns.

First of all, he explicitly says: Question: what information would you like to know about the Villain in determining whether to fold, check, or raise, and how will you use that information?
I think he is looking for an answer that includes what information you would like to know about the villain in determining whether to fold. He is asking us as the respondents to initiate discussion and to list things we would like to know.

You said yourself these situations exist, and there isn't a concrete answer to them, which is exactly why you weren't given concrete information in the first place. There would be no point of discussion if the answer was written on a piece of paper and dangled in front of our face. So can we please show some respect to someone who is posting a topic for the purpose of initiating discussion that can lead to some good debate and not just asking 'what do I do with the nuts'. Of course there will be multiple answers, and of course repsonses will be general and may have to think up some situations that their answer will apply to. But if I'm not mistaken - I think that's the point. He didn't give us a hand history with detailed stats on a villian because there wouldn't be a point in posting something where the answer is right in front of your face. If there are multiple scenerios for each situation, I think Law is leaving it for respondents to discuss them because he knows that everything in poker is dependent on an infinite number of factors.

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

Originally Posted by JKDS

I think you are thinking about this incorrectly. While it is true that these situations exist, there really isnt a concrete answer to them. How you play a hand, regardless of what hand it is, should be based on a number of things that you need to acquire while playing the game. Things like effective stack size, the opponents range, how the opponent plays that range, how likely the range connects with the flop, how much fold equity we have, weather our equity with overs is actually enough to continue, what villain perceives our range to be and how we play it, what level of player we have, etc. Its impossible to actually say "in situation 3 i would do this" because there are a ridiculous number of situation 3's who's reactions would vary according to which specific situation 3 we were talking about.

He knows all this. Just because he is a new poster doesn't mean he's clueless. To me this looks like more of a thinking exercise based on the limited information that is given. Usually in poker we have to deal with limited information, so a post like this would be great to digest and think about when you are facing unknowns.

First of all, he explicitly says: Question: what information would you like to know about the Villain in determining whether to fold, check, or raise, and how will you use that information?
I think he is looking for an answer that includes what information you would like to know about the villain in determining whether to fold. He is asking us as the respondents to initiate discussion and to list things we would like to know.

You said yourself these situations exist, and there isn't a concrete answer to them, which is exactly why you weren't given concrete information in the first place. There would be no point of discussion if the answer was written on a piece of paper and dangled in front of our face. So can we please show some respect to someone who is posting a topic for the purpose of initiating discussion that can lead to some good debate and not just asking 'what do I do with the nuts'. Of course there will be multiple answers, and of course repsonses will be general and may have to think up some situations that their answer will apply to. But if I'm not mistaken - I think that's the point. He didn't give us a hand history with detailed stats on a villian because there wouldn't be a point in posting something where the answer is right in front of your face. If there are multiple scenerios for each situation, I think Law is leaving it for respondents to discuss them because he knows that everything in poker is dependent on an infinite number of factors.

I dont understand where i attacked him for being a new poster. If my post implied a belittling tone, I apologize as i did not intend that. I know that internet posts lack inflections and sometimes the tone of a post can change the entire meaning, but i did not mean to assert any kind of harsh words.

However, my initial response did explicitly answer his first question, I gave information that i wanted to know for the first situation, as well as a reason why i dont know what to do for the following situations because of the severe lack of information. Because of this, i dont understand why you have just attacked my post. I suppose you have a point, and that we could start discussion how to play a hand given this, given this, given this, given this etc but i dont think one giant thread about everything would be very beneficial to the forum.

If this response sounds harsh or mean, i apologize to you as well macro, as i dont intend this one to sound that way either

I tend to find these huge ask everything threads kind of pointless. Noones going to write a book covering all possibilities. Pick an example and post it with reads. Learn to play poker,rather than looking for some kind of playbook of do X in Y case.

Micro understood my purpose correctly. There is no "right answer"-- there is a reasoning process based on limited information and various variables that should us beyond the automatic c-bet or automatic fold which seems to be a common response to this situation. I wanted to generate that discussion because I thought it would be helpful to FTR beginners who are wondering what to do when their AK doesn't hit the flop.

I guess some people just misinterpret the purpose of these type of posts. Generally they arne't much help to a player with any amount of suffiecient experience, but for those in the beginner's forum who are in fact beginners, I can't say they won't help at least a bit.

---JKDS no worries man, I've just read alot of LawDude's threads and I think I know what he's trying to get (mostly early level beginners and less at experienced regs) so I was just trying to clear that up. Sorry if I came off on a bad vibe with my reply to your post.