I Hate AK...a.k.a. AK Facing 3-Bet on Flop

[Esmerelda]

AKo is my biggest losing hand since I got PT (About 15k hands ago). I was just going through to look at why recently. It looks like I c-bet, 2 barrel and 3 barrel a lot with it.

I think it is also possible that the fact that at low stakes "villains always put you on AK" works against us with this hand. It may be the one time you should bust out your bag of deceptive tricks?

PF I think calling and raising have their merits. IP I think you should usually raise.

[dnord]

Maybe stay TAG, even when you get AKo?

If you're three-barreling and not getting respect, are you really playing tight?

If they push back, are you really giving them credit for a hand?

Getting dealt AK doesn't mean we turn our brains off.

[hagelito]

What's barrel/barreling? Can't find it in the FAQ, Lingo and Abbreviations etc.

LearningCurve,
happy to help out and I'm glad you got it =)

[Michael Fish]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe stay TAG, even when you get AKo?

If you're three-barreling and not getting respect, are you really playing tight?

If they push back, are you really giving them credit for a hand?

Getting dealt AK doesn't mean we turn our brains off.

[/ QUOTE ]

AK is a great hand but is just a pretty looking ace high sometimes......

[LearningCurve]

[ QUOTE ]
What's barrel/barreling? Can't find it in the FAQ, Lingo and Abbreviations etc.

LearningCurve,
happy to help out and I'm glad you got it =)

[/ QUOTE ]

It is a term used for betting, generally meaning betting rather heavily. Double-barreling would be betting and then betting a second time. An example would be Hero bets flop, villain raises, and Hero reraises. The reraise by Hero would be double-barreling. Alternatively, Hero could bet flop, then bet out again on the turn. In this case the turn bet would be the double-barreling.

[LearningCurve]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe stay TAG, even when you get AKo?

If you're three-barreling and not getting respect, are you really playing tight?

If they push back, are you really giving them credit for a hand?

Getting dealt AK doesn't mean we turn our brains off.

[/ QUOTE ]

AK is a great hand but is just a pretty looking ace high sometimes......

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.

Villain had pocket 9's and flopped trips. Watched this villain later call HUGE pf raises with pp's. Once as much as $4.85 pf (about 1/3 of his stack) with 88, so rr pf wouldn't have folded him out or helped me "define" his hand. Nonetheless, I think a 3-bet pf might be a better way of handling these in the future with most villains.

Thanks, Everyone!

[keikiwai]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What's barrel/barreling? Can't find it in the FAQ, Lingo and Abbreviations etc.

LearningCurve,
happy to help out and I'm glad you got it =)

[/ QUOTE ]

It is a term used for betting, generally meaning betting rather heavily. Double-barreling would be betting and then betting a second time. An example would be Hero bets flop, villain raises, and Hero reraises. The reraise by Hero would be double-barreling. Alternatively, Hero could bet flop, then bet out again on the turn. In this case the turn bet would be the double-barreling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Barreling is a term generally reserved for bluffing.

Single barreling is bluffing on 1 street, generally the flop.

Double barreling is bluffing on 2 streets, generally the flop and turn, and usually in a case where you pfr-ed, missed but c-bet, still have nothing but decided to bet out on the turn.

Tripple barreling is bluffing on 3 streets, the flop, turn, and river. You'll see posts about tripple barreling at micro and small stakes, and people will often say that it is always spew at these stakes, and they are almost always right.

[marvin_1935]

[ QUOTE ]
Didn't reraise pf as I had position and I'm never crazy about AK hand. On flop, I thought I might have had the best hand, so reraised for information and hopefully value.

[/ QUOTE ]

you have position and a premium hand so 3bet pf. if you think that your hand is best on that flop THEN RAISE PF!!!! your villain doesnt put you on ak cause you didnt rr pfr so just push the flop.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
Villain had pocket 9's and flopped trips. Watched this villain later call HUGE pf raises with pp's. Once as much as $4.85 pf (about 1/3 of his stack) with 88, so rr pf wouldn't have folded him out or helped me "define" his hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Generally you reraise with AK:

<ul type="square">[*]Because you want calls from AQ.[*] To give cover for your reraises with big pairs. Other times when you reraise with TT+, you want your observant opponents to hang onto underpairs in the mistaken belief that you must have AK.[/list]
You're not unhappy to fold out small pairs, since they're technically ahead. But they're also kind of dumb to call without set odds, since they're going to have trouble calling your CB. And you're not exactly sorry they called, unless they're going to take their underpair too far (in which case you need to CB ace-high less and bet top pair/overpairs for value all day).

Someone who calls 1/3 of their stack with 88 is just playing bad poker unless they have reason to think 99+ is only a tiny part of the raiser's range.

Reraising to define your opponents' hand may not be wrong, but as you said if they'll call with 88+ then the information's not worth much. That doesn't mean not to reraise, though -- if they'll call with 88 they'll probably call with AQ or AJs, and when you both flop aces you'll be very happy.

[udbrky]

Does he felt them post-flop with overs? If so, this is a very good reason to re-raise him PF. Yeah, he'll hit his set sometimes in these situations, but you'll win your share.

Also, if he gets passive post-flop and just calls if he doesn't hit a set, but raises with a set, he'll be easy to play against. And if he folds to overs when he doesn't hit a set, you've got a great opponent to play against in position.