Ranking of AK among best starting hands

[PantsOnFire]

Here is some perspective for AK:

1. It is the type of hand that likes to see all five cards.

2. The reason for 1. is that AK is a drawing hand.

3. AK is only dominated by two other hands. Against all other hands it is either a slight dog (QQ-TT), a coin flip (22-66) or is ahead from a bit (two undercards) to a lot (Ax or Kx).

So what is AK useful for? It is used to move all-in with. That's one of the key NL strategies with AK. By moving in with AK (either by coming over the top of a raiser, punishing a bunch of limpers or open-raising all-in when short), you can take advantage of some of it's features I listed above.

Another feature of AK is to win pots against hands like AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, etc. As well, AK being the very best drawing hand will make the nut straight or the nut flush when it's draw comes in, again potentially crushing those other A or K hands.

The place to be careful with AK is in deep stack situations. AK usually needs to be raised to cut the field (and get AQ to come along for a bad ride.). However, in deep stack scenarios, you can get calls from hand that will beat AK when it hits TPTK. A flop of A T 9 with two suits should not exactly be a happy day scenario in a multiway pot for AK (unless he has those two suits). You may be ahead at the moment but about half the deck would produce a turn card that could leave you drawing dead on the river.

Caution is required for these deepstack landmine type pots and flops. I try to get the betting done preflop and if I feel that villain has KK or AA by the a 4 or 5 bet then I'll just leave the hand there.