From a short-term perspective, luck dominates poker. Long-term, however, poker is dominated by chance. Luck and chance are not the same thing. Anyone can win a single tournament, good players and bad, and anyone can go bust before the money, good players and bad. Only good players regularly win though.
Don't beat yourself up when these spots crop up. Yes, sometimes we can fold AK here, but then at the same time I challenge anyone in this forum to find an experienced player that has never stacked off with AK and seen villain flip over aces. It's just poker. By the very nature of probability, it's going to happen sometimes if you play a lot of poker.
kmind is right, you're being results orientated. Your approach when it comes to dealing with these kind of spots is actually very good, you're thinking about post flop before you committ yourself pre. You let yourself down when villain shows his hand. Just shrug, say nh, and move on. Most people stack off here most of the time. Sometimes it gets folded, pat on the back if you can do it, but it's not essential to be able to fold AK pre flop in order to win at poker. As we get better (and in spots where we have a good enough read) then we start to recognise sometimes when to fold it. But even those who can fold AK pre flop, they don't always do it when it's dominated.
Look, if you have AQ here and stack off, then you probably have to have a look at your game, but based on this hand, the only thing I think you have to worry about is dealing with bad luck. Skill doesn't eliminate the luck aspect of poker, not in the short term. If you can't accept luck as an aspect of poker, then it's not the game for you.
Originally Posted by wufwugy
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