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?