The 2+2 Forum Archives: A really quick and dirty primer on playing AK

For most people, raising and coldcalling ranges are relatively well defined (for example, in a certain situation, my raising range may be AA-TT, AK-AQ.) If you go down the list of ranges, you will find that, until you get to LAGs and the bubble where every hand is getting raised with any two, most people's ranges are more or less symmetrically aligned between pairs and big cards - that is to say, if I raise UTG early there is an approximately equal chance that I have either a big pair or a big ace, and if I raise first in in the CO, there is an equal chance that I have a (not so large) pair or (not so large) two big cards.

So, when you hold AK, most of the time you get action, you will be either a small dog or a large favorite no matter what the range you are against. This argues for playing it very strongly. However, there are several considerations against that:

-If you play it too strongly, you will routinely wind up heads up against one opponent. HU, you should, in theory, continuation bet any flop (especially out of position), but if your opponent is any good he will frequently raise you off the best hand and will be getting the implied odds to call any two PF. Conversely, if your opponent is a donkey, he'll call any two anyway, and then you'll have a problem on most turns after he decides his QJ on a T63 board is a good calling hand and you check to him. This argues for playing it so that you either get zero or two or more callers (because with two callers check/folding flops you miss is fine, since you make money just by hitting.)

-Related to this, it is a far weaker hand out of position than it is on the button, especially to a raise, because once you reraise and are called you are going to have to dark tunnel bluff most of the time. (Why? Well, if you bet half the pot on any flop after a reraise, even decent players will fold the 1/3 of the time you need to make it profitable, but you'll have given away a large chunk of your stack most of the rest.) Note that a hand like JJ from the small blind is typically FAR better than AK (obviously I don't mean when a tight player raised UTG), because you will flop an overpair over half the time and that means you are reasonably sure to have the best hand far more often than AK's 35%.

-When you reraise AK in general, you are exposing yourself to another problem - the four bet. It's true that most people's raising range is favorable to you, but most decent players' four betting range has exactly 9 combos of AK, which ties you, and anywhere from 6 to 18 pairs (the top 6 of which have you crushed.) However, by the time you find out he's gonna four bet, you frequently have the odds to call it anyway, and even when you don't (and pat yourself on the back for having gotten off 'cheap') you miss out on seeing a flop you might've liked. Vs. a TAG who raises from EP, it can be a very expensive proposition. Once you keep in mind that this same TAG will almost always continuation bet any flop, even one that missed him completely, just calling will often be much better.

-At the stakes most of you play at, firing another barrel on the turn is expensive and tends to be a loser.

This doesn't mean I always just call a raise with AK or play it cautiously or do anything in particular, and you shouldn't get that out of this post. But those are some of the things I take into account when I decide NOT to be super aggressive with it PF, especially early on.

One final note: AKo is 66% or so against any two. That puts it down with 88 on a 'vs. random hand' comparison, meaning that making calls with it on the bubble vs. a big stack in one of those 'is this a fold with any two?' situations you guys love posting here all the time is also often extremely bad.

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