A K, how do you play them?
I was having lunch the other day and I over heard a conversation between two guys a couple of table's away. The one guy was telling his buddy(who didn't seem to follow poker) that he plays a lot of hold'em at the casino's and is making good side money doing it. I heard him brag to his buddy that he cleared $5000 last month and he is up this month as well. I believe I heard him say that he plays mainly the $10-20 tables.
He then goes on to tell his buddy that if he gets AK he bets hard all the way to the river even if nothing hits him. :shock: :? He was even saying that he will re-raise in this situation.
If I do not hit on the flop with AK and there is a raise in front of me I am folding. On the other hand if I am on the button and there is only a small bet to me I will re-raise to get some information.
Any thoughts?
He then goes on to tell his buddy that if he gets AK he bets hard all the way to the river even if nothing hits him. :shock: :? He was even saying that he will re-raise in this situation.
If I do not hit on the flop with AK and there is a raise in front of me I am folding. On the other hand if I am on the button and there is only a small bet to me I will re-raise to get some information.
Any thoughts?
Comments
I've found out that I'm not the only one that raises or three bets, KQs or AQo or 88 etc. (I'm being a bit sarcastic here. Of course I've known this for awhile) But I got thinking one day. If they are raising these hands then why not three bet AK? AK is dominating KQ or AQ. So who has the drawing hand now? Also if you have good image at the table three betting and capping it will instill fear in your oppenets and that can't put you on anything but a premium hand. And then you hear people say 22 is better than AK? I say fooey. If I play 22 I'm looking to hit a 2 against multiple oppenents. You need too! (sorry for the pun) Or maybe you hit some crazy straight draw. But what I'm getting at is this. If you have 22 or 33 or 44 etc and the flop comes 78J and some guy starts betting what should you do? Fold I suppose. You could raise and find out if he has nothing. But pretty gutsy with 22. With AK you can continue and bet flops like that. Not only will you probably get 22 or 33 to fold (depending on the game) you still have that chance of catching a A or K or some runner straight. I bet the hand hard. If I feel resistance after the flop I usually let it go. But I say go nuts preflop unless your up against tough oppenents but more than not will AK be the winner unless you run into something big like AA or KK but I'm sure you'll know about it and be able to fold AK high.
Also those times you get caught bluffing will help you make money on your AA KK QQ so on.
This is a rambling as I'm rushing this post. So let me sum things up.
AK is NOT a drawing hand. Why? Because most of the time your up against inferior hands. If your up against a superior you should be able to sense it and muck the hand.
Low pairs are NOT made hands. You need to hit! With AK you can probably drive out players holding small pairs.
Remember a lot of this has to do with game texture and players your up against. If you know your players are going to call to the river then play the hand a bit softer after the flop if you don't hit or have a good draw. But in tight games go nuts. I do. It seems to work.
Those are just my two cents of course. I'm no pro, yet lol.
P.S. What is a satellite game?
This is a major trap hand in low limit, but it's easy enough to play if you know how. Jam it pre-flop and fold if you miss the flop. This is one of those hands where people stare ar me and say "How do you raise before the flop and now fold?" Once in a while it's worth firing again with AK on the flop, but I won't usually.
The problem is what kinds of flops (which miss) are good for AK? If the flop is all rags, you will tend to get called down by any low or medium pocket pair, and a flop containing a face card likely hit someone.
If you play your AK too hard, you'll start getting the "win a small pot, lose a big pot" effect. You're asking too much to try to get value bets from hands like AQ or KQ, or from drawing hands who often are correctly calling you anyway when you bet.
ScottyZ
A satellite tournament is a tournament whose prizes are entries into a larger tournament. (Or occasionally the prizes are tournament buy-in tokens or something like that.)
If you're playing in a satellite, you should be able to find out which tournament the satellite feeds into by looking at the prize structure.
ScottyZ
It's commonly a tournament with a small entry fee to win entry into a larger tournament..
example: WSOP entry fee is $10,000 ...you could have 10 people put up $1,000 to play a tournament and the winner gets sent to the WSOP, that's an example of a satellite...or you could have 10,000 players put in a buck and do the same thing