Ranking of AK among best starting hands

[Ray Zee]

if played well it does best in shorthanded pots. id rank it beweteen third and fifth depending on who is in the pot with you.

with lots of players in it goes down as you need to hit it harder.

[Paul McSwizzle]

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Doyle Brunson tells stories of $500 coinflips with 22 and his opponent holding AK. His opponents usually gave up after losing a few thousand.

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Have you ever heard of "hot and cold"?

[saskaman]

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Doyle Brunson tells stories of $500 coinflips with 22 and his opponent holding AK. His opponents usually gave up after losing a few thousand.

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this clearly proves 22 is the better starting hand IMO

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That was not my point. AK is only as good as the player that plays it. 22 is only as good as the player that plays it. AK is great for PFR and 3 betting, but generally plays very poorly after flop when both hands are face up and AK misses.

[Gonso]

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That was not my point. AK is only as good as the player that plays it. 22 is only as good as the player that plays it. AK is great for PFR and 3 betting, but generally plays very poorly after flop when both hands are face up and AK misses.

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I'd say that's backwards. AK still has some value when it misses, but an unimproved pair of deuces can stand very little heat. When every card on the board is an overcard to your pair, you don't ever really know if you're ahead. Plus it gets counterfeit a lot.

I'd say 22 is certainly easier to play in most cases, since generally I'm playing for set value. Now and again it's reasonable to turn it into a bluffing hand on the flop, but for the most part fit or fold keeps this hand simple.

[LarryLaughs]

AK is definitely a good hand as long as you do not overvalue it after the flop. The problem often is that people get into a big pot with it and cannot let go even against poor odds.

My results with AK improved a lot after learning to control pot size.

[saskaman]

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That was not my point. AK is only as good as the player that plays it. 22 is only as good as the player that plays it. AK is great for PFR and 3 betting, but generally plays very poorly after flop when both hands are face up and AK misses.

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I'd say that's backwards. AK still has some value when it misses, but an unimproved pair of deuces can stand very little heat. When every card on the board is an overcard to your pair, you don't ever really know if you're ahead. Plus it gets counterfeit a lot.

I'd say 22 is certainly easier to play in most cases, since generally I'm playing for set value. Now and again it's reasonable to turn it into a bluffing hand on the flop, but for the most part fit or fold keeps this hand simple.

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Yes, of course AK still has value but an unimproved AK is exactly the same hand it was preflop...an unimproved A high with a K kicker. I would rather that someone pushes preflop with AK to use its fold equity than overplay AK to the end vs a donk that can't let go of a midpocket. I often see the AK overplayed and wonder about the thought process. AK 3 barrels are all the rage but are really nothing more than 7,2 3 barrels bluffing to the river.

[stupoman44]

I definately agree that it is more difficult to know where you are with the 22.
Also, one of the best reasons to play an AK is that other players overplay even lesser aces such as AQ, AJ, and A10. This adds much to it's profitablilty.
Stupo

[Joey2Cards]

To answer your query as to why you find AK harder to play than 22 it's because most of the time 22 is useless after the flop and can be chucked away. Easy.

You can get trapped with AK if you don't realise that it's a drawing hand. If you don't hit, you have nothing. It's easy to forget this because it looks so sexy.

[4CardStraight]

I think theres quite a few areas here unexplored.

First, the nature of the question. How do we rank AK among the best starting hands. It depends. It depends on game format (limit, deepstackNL, shortstackNL/tourney), it depends on how many hands see flops etc. Why? Because hand values are not absolute. Our hands strength measured by strict equity, or measured by Expected Value, depends on the strength of our opponents cards. If we know our opponent only plays pairs for instance, AK has way more value than 22 does.... Every time we play 22 we are dominated, and only 2/13 times we are dominated with AK.

Second I think people are missing that both hands have a problem post flop when they whiff. Many times you are fold the best hand. bottom underpair unimproved still beats all unpaired hands, which might be a majority of our opponents holding. Same is true of AK. The last poster even suggested that if you dont hit with AK you have nothing... well thats just plain wrong... you have a hand that is the best non-pair hand, and you are OFTEN likely ahead. If you build a big pot at this point, though, you are OFTEN way behind and possibly drawing dead.

The ranking of hands not only depends on their innate preflop strength (equity using things like pokerstove), but also the range of our opponent or opponents, the mixture of hand types they are willing to play, the format of the game we are playing, the size of the stacks involved, how well our opponents play post flop, how good we are at reading hands, etc.

Thus, no real definitive hand ranking guides exist... I think using +EV based on actual play is probably nearly the best. Lets maximize our expectation with each decision.

[mistere45]

I love this thread. People are actually debating whether 2-2 or A-K is better? lol. AK is a premium hand, 2-2 is surely not. For many reasons. 2-2 is crushed by any pair higher than it. 2-2 is even an underdog to any suited-connected over-cards higher than 6. i.e. 2 gapped and even 3 gapped suited connectors like. Jc-7c is favored over 2-2. Can 2-2 be played any other way than for set-value? There are guranteed three over cards on the flop, how far you going to play a pair of twos. This whole arguement is ridiculous.

BTW - the doyle example was with AK (unsuited). AK suited has the edge. And all five cards are always seen, so no "poker" was being played. Also, someone stated AK was the best drawing hand. Maybe he meant because you were drawing to the nuts. But J-10 or 10-9 suited is statistically the best drawing hand to a straight or flush.