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Originally Posted by Grumbar AK is easy to play wrong. I see people play it like it's the nuts all the time. It is a VERY strong starting hand and here is why. 70% of the time you are going to miss the flop with your starting cards. If you have only one opponent in the hand against you, there is a 70% chance they missed the flop. And unless they have a pocket pair, then you are ahead in the hand. When you do hit the flop with either card, you have top pair, top kicker, which is a pretty good hand to have. It's a slight dog to any pocket pair and is dominated only by two hands, AA and KK. |
we should have this statement in big bold letters at the top of every page. Good post
your right about players betting hard all the way to the river even when it has missed them. By reading your post you clearly have a good understanding of how to play it but for the benefit of others ill explain why betting can become high even though the player hasnt made a pair with his ace king
now consider these scenarios
player 1 is middle position with
player 2 is sitting in late position with
both players have 2000 in chips...about average stack for the table
the blinds are at 50/100
player 1 gets dealt pocket tens and is first to act. He raises up to 350. Not wanting to jepordise his whole stack player 2 decides to call. Everyone else folds
The flop comes
since the blinds folded the pot is sitting at 850
this is the kind of situation you see poker players in a lot.
Scenario 1 :
Player 1 decides to bet 400.
Player 2 will then sit and consider the hands the other player has decides to reraise up to 800 chips
Think about what player one will be thinking about. For the other player to call in the first place he (or she
) had to have a good ace or an ok pocket pair. Any queen beats his hand and if the other player has a pair jacks or better the pot is lost.
At this point the decision becomes about either folding or going allin
you will see this happen in casinos/poker-rooms from time to time. the guy with tens going all in isnt a terrible move as such - both have invested a lot in the pot and his tens could be great. From time to time you will see something like this and after the guy gets beat by AQ it looks like going all in with his tens was a terrible move. It really depends on the player but more often than not in this situation, particularly between good players, the person with the tens in this scenario would be in front as Player 2 would likely have reraised at the start had they had a top hand like kings or aces.
Scenario 2 :
Player 1 decides to check.
Player 2 puts in a contuation bet of 500 chips
what will player 1 do?
the example above shows you how someone holding ak can get involved in a large pot
you have to bear in mind though that the above example is only relevant heads up...ie two players calling. The more players in the pot the more reason someone with ak has to get out of there if the flop misses them
