With AKs..

[Werddown]

I play $10 NL on Pokerstars.

One play I'm confused about is what to do with AKs when someone comes back over the top of my re-raise (the original raiser), and I do not have a read on them.

If somoene raises 3-4x, I re-raise and make it 9-12x, and then they come back over the top of me...

Is it +EV to call or fold?

Im thinking flat calling something like a min-raise would be -EV, and if I'm going to play against their raise/reraise I should probably push... If the best play is not folding.

Enlighten me as to how you all play in this situation.

[Anaemik]

There's much more experienced NL players on this forum that could give you better advice here, but for what it's worth, here's my take:

With no reads, this becomes a tricky decision for me to make, and I have to assume I am facing a made hand, and probably a preium one at that. If we're up against AA or KK we're a huge dog, everything else is pretty much a coinflip, but unless the table is shorthanded or original raiser is a total lunatic, I'm putting his range on QQ-AA, *possibly* AK, but unlikely. Mind you, this is $10NL, so I'd maybe add TT-JJ to his range aswell. So let's make it a 60% chance of a coinflip and a race for the chips, and a 40% chance that you are a big dog in the hand, giving you about a 30% total chance of taking the hand if it's seen to completion. Do you want to take those kind of odds, where it's very likely that a lot more chips are going into the pot after the flop? What happens if you hit a K or an A on the flop, but none of your suit comes and original raiser is still betting strong? I think you're getting yourself into trouble here more often than you're not.

I'd really have to assess this in situ if it were me - do I outstack re-raiser, and if so by how much? Do I get the feeling I can outmanouver him after the flop? And am I ready to race for a lot of chips? If you're ready for the race, then I'd push. If you don't like it, I'd fold.

Others may disagree.

[bair]

if they are loose i call, if they are tight i fold. also being in position helps a lot. i dont think i would considering pushing

[Miffed22001]

fold AK to a 3bet imo

[KingLizard]

fold AK to a 3bet imo

That's my standard play as well. AK is just not the hand I want to be calling re-raises with. Almost always I am up against AA and KK and if an A or K falls on the flop, you never know if they just made a set against your TPTK.

[jackvance]

Push if you think he's full of shit, otherwise fold. Like KingLizard says, if you call and you hit your 1/3 chance of flopping TPTK, you still don't know if you're good.

[Anaemik]

Another thing to add to my previous post, and to the wisdom of those who posted after me -

On the occasions where you are not up against AA or KK, how much money do you expect to make when one of your cards pairs with the board? Most pocket pairs are going to slow right down to an overcard on the board, so extracting value from your winning hand is going to be tricky.

So, with the estimated 30% of times that you are ahead, you are unlikely to profit from them enough to justify all the times you call a 3 bet when you're behind.