What to do with AK

No limit 6max game - any buy-in, doesn't matter. You have AKo and make your standard raise. The guy two seats to your right re-raises you by a lot, let's say 7x your initial raise. You have a very strong read that this player is capable of making this exact re-raise with a middle pair like tens or jacks. You're pretty confident that's what he has. Additionally, he raised you out of the pot on the flop of the previous hand, so there's a chance he's just trying to push you around.

What do you do here?

1. fold
2. call and take a flop
3. raise/push

Let's see...you call and hit an A or K you get only a little more money out of him if he has jj or tt. If you miss, you only lose the size of his bet.

You push AI, you give yourself a chance to win his whole stack plus you give yourself the chance to take down the pot right then by repping aa/kk. If you lose, you lose alot more money...

Probably either way is good, but I personally push because I like my chances of making him fold. Plus, you get 5 cards to make your hand. If you call you only get 3.

I like Magician's reasons to push but only if you trust your read that he doesn't have KK/AA and would possibly lay down. If you have another read that says he'll probably call here even with JJ/TT, I dunno if I would want to flip for my stack. If I wasn't sure on either of those, I'd probably just call and see the flop. I might be crazy but I would support a push more if it was AKs instead of AKo, that way you can get lucky and not completely screwed if they do have AA/KK.

I just realized you're talking about 6max. Yes, push away.

Well........ I did push. He called. I was correct that he had a middle pair (jacks) but I didn't catch an ace or king to take him down. I only wish he had hung around at my table for a couple more hours so hopefully I could get a legit big pair against his next pair of jacks or tens.

The main reason I pushed here was not because I thought I was ahead of him (obviously it was at best a coin flip), but because I didn't want to send the message that he could run over me whenever he wanted, and I figured the possibility of him folding gave me at least break-even EV on the move. Just a shame it didn't work out this time.

if i'm correct, AK v JJ is around 50/50? however you've already chucked in your standard raise.. so from that point in you're actually putting in less money to go all in. so i guess your expected value from that play is slightly higher than 50%, mainly because u're putting slightly less money in, and because you may be able to push him off his hand..

push..

Do you know he'd have bet differently with AA? Would he have gone all-in straight away, say? If you *didn't* know this, and AA was a real consideration, I'd have felt just the wrong side of a coin flip and would probably have folded.

4. throw your cards up in the air and run away screaming

(credit due to whoever I stole that line from)

i would fold it, who cares if he's pushing you around with middle pair ..in fact hes not pushing you around, he has you beat preflop.

why risk your stack for only 4x the BB raise you tossed in... let him think he is pushing you around, and sting him with the goods later.


if it was a tourney, sure your trying to win, go for it. ring games your trying to win money, so wait til you have the best of it... all this macho ego bullshit is goign to make you go broke, let it go move on to the next hand... save the pissing matches for the tournaments

Originally Posted by Element187

i would fold it, who cares if he's pushing you around with middle pair ..in fact hes not pushing you around, he has you beat preflop.

Yes, it's about 55/45 in his favor.

why risk your stack for only 4x the BB raise you tossed in... let him think he is pushing you around, and sting him with the goods later.

I already touched on that. But in more detail: if a guy is acting after me on 2/3 of the hands we play together and raises me out of two consecutive pots where I have decent hands (and raised before the flop), he's going to get a taste for blood. At some point I have to lay down the law just to keep him out of my face. This isn't just about whether I will win this particular hand, it's about table image and how I will do against him for as long as he is sitting with me. In a full ring game you can afford to camp and bust him; in 6max I'm not going to be that weak. I like to command some respect at those tables, it's the only way to make any money.

if it was a tourney, sure your trying to win, go for it. ring games your trying to win money, so wait til you have the best of it... all this macho ego bullshit is goign to make you go broke, let it go move on to the next hand... save the pissing matches for the tournaments

If you are in a short-handed game with someone pushing you off a lot of pots, you'll go broke slowly anyway. You can call it a pissing match but I think it's important to show that you're not just handing your money away. The occasional re-raise I will definitely respect, but when a guy comes over the top of me two or three hands in a row, I start to get suspicious. And I feel like at some point I'm going to have to make a move on him, or leave the table for greener pastures.

Not saying I was 100% right to push here, but I think it has merit. Assuming my read was right (and it was) it's almost a coinflip, just slightly in his favor. If there's even a 5% chance he'll fold I break even on the play; any greater chance and I'm actually coming out ahead. I don't see how this is a bad idea. Even if he calls every single time I'm not losing that much. The only worry is if he has kings or aces, but here I had a pretty good reason to think he had a lower pair than that... namely, I had seen him pull that same move on someone else with tens. It's also more common to re-raise that way with weaker pairs in 6max, because players are trying to take down the pot now and not have to do any more thinking. They get defensive with vulnerable hands. I don't have any proof on this, but I bet that same guy re-raises less when he has aces or kings.

Also, this worked out exactly how I wanted (except for me going broke on the hand, har har). For the next hour that we played together this guy never once re-raised me pre-flop, and was a lot more cautious in hands we played against each other. It didn't make me any money directly but it helped my table image quite a bit. I'm still not convinced if this was a great idea though. I feel like maybe I should have waited to see if he kept this up beyond 2 hands.

i still rather wait for a better opprotunity to bust him... taking his stack sends a stronger message...


i think the even better move would to find a table where you have position on this type of a player.

Originally Posted by dalecooper

Well........ I did push. He called. I was correct that he had a middle pair (jacks) but I didn't catch an ace or king to take him down. I only wish he had hung around at my table for a couple more hours so hopefully I could get a legit big pair against his next pair of jacks or tens.

The main reason I pushed here was not because I thought I was ahead of him (obviously it was at best a coin flip), but because I didn't want to send the message that he could run over me whenever he wanted, and I figured the possibility of him folding gave me at least break-even EV on the move. Just a shame it didn't work out this time.

I think that if the guy reraised you that hard he wasn't going to lay down to a push. He also knows that he's been pushing you around so he just may have figured you for getting tired of it and pushing with less than stellar cards.

AK is not a preflop allin card for me because whenever the action gets heavy enough to warrant an allin push someone usually calls and has AK beat.

I would either: 1.fold it and get away from the situation. If you hit an A or K, how sure are you that he doesnt have AA/KK...and then what if a J,T, or Q comes and he's suddenly up in your face again?

2. take a flop, but you are really going to have to be able to read him because the 1/3rd of the times you hit an A or K you need to be able to tell when your hand is good.

Really, I go for #1 because I hate not being the raiser PF. There's always going to be a chance to trap him later.


Table image < 1 buyin
1 buyin > table image

Do we call, push or fold. I would fold with the reasoning as follows:

Call:
If you put him on a middle pair he is a slightly ahead of you. He has about a 57% chance to win the hand. Now given what is already in the pot, calling this has a very slight positive EV if you are absolutely sure he has a lower pocket pair. However, I don't think you can rule out him holding AA or KK. If this is even a slight chance it makes calling the bet -EV. Even if we rule out AA or KK as a possibility, I would not call the bet even thought it is slightly +EV, since the high variance does not make the tiny +ev worth it.

Push:
So I would not call, but pushing is another possibility. If we push, the relatively small raise that we already put in the pot could become insignificant (it depends on the depth of our stack compared to the first raise) and make the move –ev, if we knew we would be called. This is somewhat offset by the chance the he may fold to an all-in re-raise. If you believe there is a small chance he holds AA or KK, the push becomes -ev. In the end, I would not push here. Any possible +ev is too small for me in comparison to the variance of the move.

However, as Dalecooper said, he pushed, not for the value on this hand, but to send a message for future hands that he could not be run over. The value of that greatly depends on your playing style.

calling is probably the biggest mistake here, if you do spike your ace or king on the flop, and make a bet, he would fold and you only win the amount of his reraise.. more then likely, you will miss and be forced to fold. if you call and an ace or king spikes, you could behind and lose your stack.

the fact you pushed and he called, sounds like he had a good read on you.

Originally Posted by Element187

the fact you pushed and he called, sounds like he had a good read on you.

I don't know about that... we'd played together for only half an hour and I had been playing a pretty by-the-book style, giving standard raises with a fairly tight (for 6max) array of hands. I don't know what would clue him in that I didn't have an overpair. He could make an educated guess that it was more *likely* I had high cards, but I don't think he could know for certain. I think he called because he had a lot of money in already, and because a lot of people in 6max just overvalue the hell out of pocket jacks. I see guys all day long shoving all-in pre-flop with middle pairs... some of them are horrible players and some of them are good players with good reads. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Originally Posted by dalecooper

Originally Posted by Element187

the fact you pushed and he called, sounds like he had a good read on you.

I don't know about that... we'd played together for only half an hour and I had been playing a pretty by-the-book style, giving standard raises with a fairly tight (for 6max) array of hands. I don't know what would clue him in that I didn't have an overpair.

you played by the book, of course he had a read on you (that is if he is any good)

by the book poker is a very predictible game, i find it more predictible then fishy weak play.

Originally Posted by Element187

calling is probably the biggest mistake here, if you do spike your ace or king on the flop, and make a bet, he would fold and you only win the amount of his reraise.. more then likely, you will miss and be forced to fold. if you call and an ace or king spikes, you could behind and lose your stack.

Beautiful post. I think he's got it right on.


Also, pushing with AK in 50NL is not going to work out as often as it might in other games because like you said, people over value the hell out of pocket pairs.

Originally Posted by Element187

you played by the book, of course he had a read on you (that is if he is any good)

by the book poker is a very predictible game, i find it more predictible then fishy weak play.

You're crackin' me up, man. I don't know what "by the book" means to you, but I am basically referring to raising 3xBB with any raisable hand, especially with position. I have no idea how that's predictable. If anything I think it's quite the opposite of predictable. If I raise about once per orbit, always the same amount, and show down all kinds of hands (pocket nines through aces, AK, AQ, AJ, KJ, KQ, even the occasional low suited connectors) when called, how is that predictable? By the book poker, to me, is designed to not be very readable. About the only thing he knows is that my hand is decent. Granted that's a little more predictable than the holdings of a true maniac, but he really doesn't know if I have him beat or not. He can only guess that about 2/3 or 3/4 of the time he'll be ahead of me. If I push all-in over the top of his re-raise, he then has to guess whether I have AK or higher pockets, or maybe even lower pockets... what read exactly is going to give him that information?

poker by the book to me is standard straight forward poker, only playing big aces, i spot out the rocks quick and take advantage of them.

in fact i prefer to play against the rocks then the fish, its alot easier to take their stack when they get married to their AK.

Originally Posted by dalecooper

What do you do here?

What do you think your odds are? Against any pair
you are getting about even odds. What's in the pot?
How much is the call? If its significant I will call and
see the flop.

i agree that by the book poker is definitely designed to be difficult to read. I continuation bet with AK if i miss, generally if i get called on the flop i stop, but depending on the other guy, i might keep it up on the turn/river if i think they're weak, and i'm usually right, but when i can't get them to fold it they'll flip third pair or whatever and say "i knew it don't try that on me". No, you didn't. I would've played aces/kings the same way, you guessed that there was an x% chance I missed and got lucky. This is why you always see these same people with like K9 and a pair of 9's getting rocked versus AA and they act surprised.

oh yea, and in that case in 6 max, it depends a lot on how the game is going. I think once you take everything into account, you're probably 50-50 by pushing, calling is wrong. So, since its 50-50 pushing, i would go ahead and do it, because even though you're not really making anything out of it, you can't be a bitch like that with your good hands.

I'll add to this, i was playing heads up just yesterday (similar to 6-max), i was playing very very aggressively, I get jacks, I raise preflop, he reraises to half his stack, I push, he says ....JJ and folds. If you had AK and got someone to fold away a significant amount of their stack even once out of ... a lot, pushing is good.

i usually had went all in with AK in the beginning of my play but since i have learned that for me AK os rarely wins, so if i'm going to stay in the pot at all, i'd either just check or go all in & if anyone raised i'd fold, my experience with AK os isn't too good lol