$60 - one issue I have with the AK "curtains call"

[Pudge714]

I think I would bet this river or turn.

[suzzer99]

Ok, as often seems to be the case when I have a theoretical rumination post, I haven't made myself very clear. I don't mean to focus too much on the hand in question, let's just say in general you have AK facing a preflop raiser and a good chance of isolation. We can talk about in position or OOP, if those change your action.

Furthermore - responses like "I usually just cold call" aren't excatly what I'm looking for. I realize that for most everyone at the higher buyins cold calling is the norm. I coldcall. I'm just questioning some aspects of it and trying to stimulate some discussion.

Namely:

a) The decreased chance you see an A or a K on the flop, due to the incresed times your opponent has an A and sometimes a K.

b) The times you get pushed off the best hand or equal hand by a garden variety c-bet, because you don't have the impetus. Whereas if you had the impetus, it's you doing the pushing.

c) If you are at a level where you feel like a decent % of the *early* opponents are willing to go to the felt with AQ or even AJ/T, does it make more sense to reraise more?

I realize there are some serious drawbacks to reraising in that it often commits a decent chunk of your chips early to a whiffed hand, which isn't so great that time your opponent does have a PP. I'm just ponitificating on whether the increased theoretical profit from other big aces might make it worthwhile.

[Austiger]

I would reraise PF. There are occasions when I just call UTG's miniraise, but not at this level.

[sofere]

I used to reraise AK a lot until recently. I haven't really looked at the stats, but I feel that cold calling has been a much better strategy.

In regards to your bullet points:
(a) A or K not hitting on the flop is one of the reasons to keep the pot small pf. If you reraise pf, and an A or K doesn't hit on the flop, how confident are you that you still have the best hand? Also, a c-bet will be very expensive because the pot's been bloated from all the pf betting.

(b) So you get pushed off of the best hand a lot. So what? Don't forget, you also get pushed off of the worst hand a lot. You've only lost a few chips and didn't really harm your chip position by much. I always think of Lorinda's advice when it comes to these situations..."do you need this pot?" Thats kept me from FPS many many times.

Of course, this is all in the early levels. If the chips already in the pot really are going to make a significant impact to your stack, obviously just push all-in pf.

(c) The fact that players are willing to go to the felt with AT-AQ is all the more reason to play cheaply preflop...Implied odds. Players with AQ will still be willing to get stacked when they hit their top pair, especially after you've "shown weakness" preflop. And even if you don't stack them, you're definitely gonna get a good hunk of chips.

[el_dusto]

I did a little bit of digging into my pokertracker stats for this one, and the only relevant bit of data can be summed up like this:

I won more hands by overpushing AK and winning at showdown / winning the blinds, but I lost more total chips by overpushing AK and getting called by pairs.

[dumbmother]

forgive my ignorance but where does everyone get curtain's HH's from? it doesn't seem like he is ever the one who posts them....

dm

[suzzer99]

sofere,
a) Well my main point is how much less likely and A is to come since your opponent has one a good chunk of the time. So waiting for one seems less fruitful than usual. But I agree about the c-bet into a big pot, and I think this is the biggest negative to reraising with AK.

c) But an ace is only going to flop 7.5% of the time when you each have one. Much fewer than the amount of times you can stack AQ if you both wind up all in preflop.


el_dusto,
Nice. Data is good.

[el_dusto]

I'm working with a total database of about 37k hands, and about 1000 of those are AK hands.

I should hasten to add that both cold-calling and overpushing were profitable at all levels for me except 75/150 (the only level with a net loss of chips with AKs/o), and cold-calling was still somewhat profitable at 75/150.

Basically, a nice mix of both > always cold-calling > always overpushing.

[sofere]

[ QUOTE ]
sofere,
c) But an ace is only going to flop 7.5% of the time when you each have one. Much fewer than the amount of times you can stack AQ if you both wind up all in preflop.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think its more about conserving chips than it is about stacking opponents. And if I'm risking 80 chips to double up 7.5% of the time I don't mind that at all. Thats why we play pocket pairs for set value. I know thats an oversimplification, but I gotta go...good post, I'll think about it more later.

[SuitedSixes]

My rule of thumb is to only re-raise with AK (or any hand) in a situation where I am preprared to get it all-in preflop if I am re-re-raised all in.