I watched a video last night that was specifically tailored to 2NL full ring. The guys play was solid and well thought out. It was however a very basic strategy, with not a lot of player specific thought, mostly just "my own cards and how to play them".

There was a hand where the 'coach' folds AK preflop in MP to a single 3x raise by UTG+1.

His points are, and they seem valid..

  • Opponents range is equal or ahead of us, so we must fold to c-bets on missed flops.
  • Opponents range is equal or ahead of us, so we are only ever looking to play a small pot even on flops we hit.
  • Because we are in MP we may see more callers behind leaving us without iniative and out of position in a multiway pot, further weakening the relative hand strength of our TPTK.
  • Better to get out preflop without putting any chips in, than face an awkward situation, as there are plenty of other opportunities to profit in this game.


I'm inclined to agree with him.. so am I being being very TAG, in that this is super tight and i'm folding because it will be a bad situation to get aggressive in, or am I being very nit-faced in agreeing that folding AK preflop is ok here.

note that his play was otherwise not nitty at all. tight OOP, opened up in the CO and BU. aggressive with good hands, c-bet's, set-mined when the odds were good etc. etc.