Are you losing with AK a lot?

Poker Strategy
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Background: I recently saw a hand of high-stakes poker including Tom Dwan where someone lost USD 1.5 Million with AK. That made me think, that despite all the information available on the net and coaching, people are still overplaying AK and made me write on this. This article is about how to play AK when you have more than 20 blinds, anything less than, is a fair shove until and unless you are on the bubble (we will discuss this in another article)

Detail: AK suited or non-suited is one of the Top 10 hands in any poker book or chart and very often, including me, people usually overplayed it.

Pre-flop it is certainly a hand with which you can open from any position, in fact, 3 bet from middle or late positions too. However, it’s the 4-bet which will bring you trouble more often than you think. USD 1.5 million pot which I mentioned above is the hand where the loser 4 bet from button. I personally based on my experience will not do it because it will lay a foundation for big loss on the next betting rounds. Consider this, if you open, someone 3 bet you, what are the possible hands you will be ahead of AQ, AJ and consider how many hands he may be ahead of you, AA, KK at least and flipping with QQ, JJ, 10 in fact any pocket pair, opponent will have 2-3% edge. So there are only 2 hands where you will be genuinely ahead, 2 hands where you will be well behind, and there will be 10 hands where you will be flipping with a slight disadvantage.

So, the question is do you want to flip? I know, I don’t!

Poker is about finding certainty out of all uncertainty, so my idea is to hit the flop first then look for value because on a rainbow flop if you don’t hit, you just have an Ace high. Is it worth risking your tournament life or your whole stack with Ace high? I guess not. However, if you 4 bet and already made a pot super heavy, you will tend to 3-barrel and lose more often.

Post Flop: you hit the flop: early positions, if you hit the flop, 1-3 players behind and dry flop, you can check to trap or bet, if more than 1-3 players definitely raise to shorten the field, you don’t people to catch two pairs or set. Late positions, if you hit the flop, raise or re-raise to hold the aggressive advantage.

You don’t hit flop: Early position or late position, check call if it’s less than 40% pot size bet, if more than 40% fold because Ace High is not worth risking your stack. Consider the pot size here, if you had ballooned the pot with 4 bet pre-flop, it would have been extremely difficult for you to let go of the pot here.

Turn: if you are still in the pot, and still haven’t hit anything, check fold. If you are on a broadway or flush draw check your pot odds and play accordingly.

River: if you hit your ace or king, and the other player had been doing pot control bets on flop and turn, you might have the best hand but I will still not recommend a re-raise here as the other player will fold if he can’t bet ace or king or will re-raise as he was waiting for you to catch your card so he can get max value for his/her two pairs or set.

Conclusion: AK will turn out to be Ace high by the end at the river more often than you expect and far less likely to be a winner. Don’t play big slick like pocket rockets or cowboys with more than 20 blinds in your stacks and we all know even they are not immune to loss.

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I would like to respectfully disagree.

I think your 3-betting range is way to narrow in most spots. You’re also not accounting for the fold equity you have when 4-betting with AK - which is significant. You do seem to realize that just calling the 3-bet is going to let other players into the hand as well, but aren’t accounting for the fact that you’ve gone from flipping with the 3-bettor to now splitting your equity with multiple players.

I also don’t get your logic for not wanting to flip preflop but calling when you miss the flop. You have very little equity against the range you’ve given your opponent now - not enough to call a bet without a flush or straight draw to go with your overcards. So you can’t profitable call on most flops, especially with multiple people in the hand, and that’s a huge negative for just calling preflop.

If you’re not prepared to flip with AK, you should probably just fold it to the 3-bet.

Your advice has some merit though when your really deep (200+ bb) or facing a 4-bet.
You have much less fold equity when really deep, because pocket pairs and suited connecters are likely to call your 4-bet.
When facing a 4-bet with AK, you will be against a tight range and most other players will have already folded. All-in/call/fold are all valid options here, depending on your opponent.

Also, apart from continuing on the flop, I agree with your recommendations for how to play the hand if you do just call.

My conclusion would just be: Be aggressive with AK preflop. There’s only 3 combos or pocket rockets and cowboys left, you have very good equity against everything else. You lose out on the fold equity you need to make AK really profitable by playing it passively (this is especially important post flop).

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As a response to the title question: No I’m not, or at least not more than with any other hand.

If I’m sitting on a huge big stack AK is certainly a good enough hand to bully small stacks on my table at any point of the tournament. I would also flip it on the bubble if the final table seemed to be too far away and I still had some fold equity.

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Tricky to play AK in these situations.
However, in my opinion, it is crucial to avoid risky 4-bet situations pre-flop, considering post-flop risk management.
The idea of seeking certainty amid uncertainty in poker is something I value, and the strategies outlined in the post align with my pursuit of consistency and safety at the tables.
Poker is about keep being alert and never stoping to learn.

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No

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The problem is that by not 4-betting you have less certainty on the flop.
eg Flop comes AJ9, how well are you actually doing? AJo, A9s, 99 and even J9s are reasonable 3-bets in a lot spots, but they are very often folding to a 4-bet. They can also now still have KQo, QTs - so a bunch of draws that would have folded out too.
That might be one of the more extreme examples, but ranges are always going to be wider on the flop when you just call the 3-bet, so there will always be more uncertainty.

If your talking about certainty the other way - being able to fold when you miss the flop - that’s not really true either. You’re opponent is going to miss the flop more often than not too, but you’re almost always going to be facing a c-bet and will often end up folding the best hand.

AK is strong enough to stack off with preflop in most cases. I don’t see how a profitable 4-bet can be considered risky. Yeah, you’ll lose sometimes, but that’s true with any hand.

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I will muck AK in the bb :rofl:

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Mostly I feel like I win with AK. I will almost always raise or reraise with AK preflop. I have lost a lot of money late in tournaments when the short-stacks have called me with Ace rag and hit their ragged kicker. I agree about being aggressive preflop but if they come along, you need to be able to let it go when the cards don’t go your way and your opponent shows aggression.

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AK is a over valued hand for sure , it doesn’t guarantee win , needs to be played carefully . Personally when I am deep stacked I will never go all in with AK , especially in a higher buy in game . If it’s a freeroll or very low buy in game then I don’t care much .when ots AK vs AA , man that sucks .

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I can’t believe how many people go all in with Ace - (anything). In fact, unless it is a tourney with huge BB’s at the last table or 2, I never go all in pre-flop. Even AA has about a 30% chance of winning even though it is the best starting hand in Hold 'Em. When someone wants to go all in on the pre-flop, I will almost always sit out and watch. I love to see how the All In bingo players use up all of their chips, but I digress. This was about AK, not Bingos, sorry.

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Usually i like to play A-K, but i have to say i my percentage to get A-K is very low and i play more often A-J or A-Q.
In my opinion these are nice hole cards but nothing to over value because if the board isnt lucky, and for example 2-5-8 is the flop you can check fold ya nice cards in more than 70%.
If there is a chance preflop and you have a good position than try to make a bet 2,5-3,5BB - especially if you know that you will be only with 1 or 2 villains seeing the flop.
It is also a hand that must be played careful if you hit the board maybe with a K. Try to make a solid value bet(min. 33% pot size - max. 50%)if other players check and if the board is good for ya like K-2-8.

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AK is a significantly better hand than even AQ though. There’s now twice as many combos of KK along with 3 combos of QQ and 12 combos of AK that all have you in fairly bad shape. AJ is obviously worse again.

BTW, the 2-5-8 board is bad example. That’s actually an easy continue for AK with no straights or likely 2 pairs available - you have both a significant amount of equity and also fold equity on that board. Your point about having to check/fold AK a fair amount of the time is correct though. That will happen less often the more aggressively you play it preflop though.

BTW, I’m not advocating open shoving AK, I’m just saying it’s almost always strong enough to at least 4-bet with. You shouldn’t open it or 3-bet it for a larger size than any other hand.

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Ideally we won’t have to go all-in very much at all until the final table, but this requires an unusually good run of cards in most cases.

I find myself all-in multiple times before the FT in the vast majority of MTTs. It’s often the only way to build a stack.

If we are playing MTTs the goal should be to win 1st place. Playing to win by attrition may lead to fewer frustrating bustouts before the money, but the EV of this strategy is usually significantly lower than being aggressive and increasing your risk/reward.

I have more finishes in the bottom 25% than I would like, but I also have more Top 3 finishes than a lot of my competitors. That is my goal :slight_smile:

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In fact, the most money made by AK is actually the fact that we dominate every other Ax and Kx, and this allows us not only to win many hands postflop, but also preflop. If we 4-bet and someone fold their AQ, for example, we are good. AK also blocks AA and KK, which is a very good thing. Against QQ, JJ and even TT we are in a flip. I don’t understand why people think AK is not good. I mean, ok, if you only play to hit an A or a K, it will not be good, because you’ll miss the board much more than hit. It is almost the same thing of raising JJ and flop comes A, K or Q, or even raising QQ and flop brings an A or K.

By the way, Jonathan Little posted this some days ago, might help someone:

How to instantly improve with ace king…
Don’t always be all-in preflop in massive pots.
Not adapting postflop & treating it like a strong hand on terrible runouts.
Find spots to go for thin value!

Cheers!

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Hi, Modestplayer.

Normally AKs is a 4-bet hand with stack sizes up to 100BB, AKo has a mixed 50% call and 50% 4-bet according to some GTO charts depending on position.

BUT like everything in poker, it’s all relative and player dependent.

Against some super-tight nit that almost never 3-bets, it can even be a fold.

Against some loose aggressive maniac, it’s an easy 4-bet and even allin hand.

Against some players that play very bad post-flop, it can have some value to keep all their worse Ax hands in play and not fold them out. Especially if they think you never can have AK if you just call a raise and they bluff or overvalue three streets.

Just like the players that sometimes overplay AK against an opponent with a tight range don’t be afraid to play it strong against balanced or loose players.

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Games here are rigged, only way to play here is no betting until the river and then go all in if you have the best possible hand. Mods here will claim its not rigged and show an out of date paid for RNG certificate lol, we all know it’s rigged. There are way better poker sites than this one that’s why so few people play here.

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Thanks. I wasn’t aware that I knew that Replay was rigged, but it’s so obvious now, because clearly an RNG will stop being random once it’s certificate expires. I’m going to keep playing though, because I don’t see how your “no betting until the river and then go all in” strategy can possibly lose.

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what do you if other player’s bet? :joy:

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Ok well firstly there are four of every intermittent card. You have just as much chance of hitting a 7 or a 2, as you do a A or a K.

In fact if 3 people in the game have AK and everyone is in for 200 chips preflop… your 7 2 can look a whole lot better. Because there is only One A and K in the remainder of deck.

Sorry if I’m vague and yes there are too many variables, ultimately leading to a headache. Hope I helped!

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This, then they try to gas light on their blog about it being a cognitive bias… like no, I’ve done the math, I regularly see fraction of a percent odds happening every single time I play. I lost with AA 5 times within two sit and goes. But watch out speaking the truth here, the site has a no bashing rule thy like to enforce more than dealing with real problems, like bots.