Don't raise AK preflop, ever acceptable?

[Gonso]

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By raising a greater amount with AK - one also tell the other players one has AK. They can thus play against one perfectly.

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No, they can't, because as I pointed out you're raising generally larger amounts against this crowd in general. It's a good way to take advantage of these players, and it's aimed to get you more value on your good hands.

There's almost always going to be more value in raising AK preflop than just calling with it. These players are playing too many hands too loosely, exploit them for it. It's easy to lose a lot of money with TPTK in an unraised pot with AK, especially if there are three other players in the pot.

You can obviously mix it up now and again, but as this situation is described there's really no need to try to get too fancy. Your complex deception schemes are going to be worthless against loose-weak type players who are generally pretty bad players. Keep in mind that it's harder to make a monster hidden hand you can get paid with when you have AK (as opposed to a hand like 44 flopping a set, or making a odd straight with 76, which are less obvious).

Now, defining your range here isn't always the end of the world anyway. You can fold a few pairs with a decent 3-bet, and tons of hands whose live cards are still not that far behind you. Taking down the pot preflop is just fine with AK, and frankly there are tons of occasions where you can play it for stacks preflop as well.

[Taso]

lol, I don't know what I was thinking. Every now and then I have some ridiculous ideas about poker, and then after talking to someone relativley intelligent, I go "wow, that was stupid."

Agree with you guys, I'll just raise bigger than usual pre and take advantage of the bad play.

This reminds me of when I first started playing this game, one of the players kept hitting flushes on me, despite me betting fairly big amounts. So I tell my other friend, "next time, I'll just bet really small, and if he calls I'll know he has the flush draw, so I don't lose as much", and of course my friend turns to me and goes "uhh, why don't you just bet larger than usual, so he's always getting really bad odds to call, and he'll over-pay to hit the flush"...Of course I immedietly realized my stupidy :P

Anywho, thanks for the answers.

[shootaa]

not raising with AK is pretty bad unless you can limp reraise with it and get called by worse a decent amount of the time. even then, making that your standard play would be terrible.

just raise, double barrel more or check raise flops if you're getting floated a lot. there are plenty of other ways to adjust to these types of players, don't adjust by not raising your good hands.

[LarryLaughs]

If the game is loose, I would just raise a bit more as a standard raise.

Also, then you can stop c-betting with AK in a loose game with many pf limp-callers. Only bet if you have TPTK+ or a good draw (would be flush in this case). In a loose preflop game you can play the flop "fit or fold" if you get enough callers, since with two callers you do win often enough just by hitting the flop TPTK. In a heads up pot hand you could not do that since you only hit the flop about once in three times. I mean if you know for a fact that the opponents will call with anything (medium pair+) on the flop, you should not bet with air.

[TheBad]

I was in the same situation this weekend. Almost 2 buy-ins because they kept calling and i couldn´t connect. AK biggest looser over 2k hands..
I am trying 3 things now:
-If i think they will call anywhere, i let them pay. 6 BBs not enough ? Make it 8. Still 2 callers ? Make it 10.
-As long as there are always 3 players calling, raising should bring an immediate profit.
-Smaller c-bets. A little bit over 1/2 potsize. It seems to me that they make their decissions according to their cards, not their odds.

[quban00]

always raise...no doubt

[Explicit65]

definitely result based thinking. you raise with AK.

[Bantam222]

you're saying that when you raise AK you get too many callers and they will call your cbet with any part of the flop. So you don't have to cbet if its a multiway pot, but you still want to raise it so when you do hit a flop, the pot will be bigger and you can make more money.

You have the best hand preflop, you want to get as much money in preflop as you can. simple.

[Mark1808]

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I was wondering if it makes sense to not raise with AK preflop in an extremly loose game. The kind of game where a continuation bet on the flop will almost never take it down. Essentially, if you miss, you're probably going to lose the pot.

Opinions? Is this just results based thinking?

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If you are in a loose game that generally sees a raised pot you may consider making a large 3 bet just as you would with AA or KK either in position, from the blinds or an early position limp reraise. This mixes up your play and even in a loose game should ususally get you heads up on the flop where your continuation bet will get more respect.

[PantsOnFire]

By not raising AK, you are giving players the correct odds to call with a wide variety of hands.

Even if you do hit an A or K on the flop, you still may have a tough decision because of the wide range you could be facing.

So if you want to allow bad loose players to have correct odds to play any two cards and if you want to have tough decisions on the flop, then limp with AK.

In answer to your subject question, I would say yes sometimes you can limp with AK. However, that might be in a very specific game with TAGS, nits and tricky players who are going to raise behind you and you now have an option to 3 bet or smoothcall.