It was my birthday recently and one of my presents was Harrington on Cash Games Vol. 1. I’ve been poring over it for the past couple of weeks and trying to absorb as much advice as possible. There’s a lot to learn and a lot I’ve picked up – one of the points that stands out is play with AK.
I read the forums on deucescracked.com regularly and noticed a thread from a regular poster a while back; he’d had such a bad run with AK that he was thinking about automatically folding it in future. Of course, in tournament play, that’s not a good idea. AK in tournament play is the kind of hand you can double up with.
In full ring cash games, AK is a bit shit. Sure, you can make money with it, but it would take a miracle to double up with it in a full ring cash game. Let’s take the example of AK off suit, as if you flop a flush or two to a flush with AKs you’re obviously going to be happy. But what about AK off suit?
Let’s take middle position as an example – one limper and you raise to 3x BB in middle position with As Kd. It’s folded round to the button who calls; the blinds fold. The early position limper calls the extra. For a microstakes game, this is bread and butter, a routine situation with AKo.
The flop comes 6d 9c Qh – rainbow flop with only a very small likelyhood of someone having an open ended straight draw with 87 or JT. Small, but considering the play – let’s say the button is a stronger player than the early limper – either or both of them could have exactly that hand. And we have Ace high.
Obviously AK is a drawing hand but what can come down on the flop that a) fits and b) won’t make the other players run for the hills?
If we hit QJT on the flop for a straight draw, the likelihood of getting any post flop action is virtually nil. Even the worst fish isn’t going to bet or raise without a set and any decent player is going to fold and wait for a better opportunity.
If we hit AKx on the flop for two pair, we might get a bit of action from someone with AQ or a lower A but against a decent table the pot’s going to go down on the flop. Any aggressive action from a good player is likely to mean they’re holding AA (which just crushes AK, I think the odds of AKo winning against AA is about 5%) or KK (which I think is about 17%).
If we hit a Axx on the flop without flush or straight draws, even then it’s not the kind of situation where it’s time to think about how to get all the chips into the pot. Kxx is slightly better as we have the A kicker, but shoving in that spot would only get a call from someone with a set or something more likely than not to beat top pair top kicker.
In short, which other unsuited connector hands would you play and push hard in that situation? You’d want to play from late position and make sure the pot didn’t go apeshit after the flop. Which means no felting action for you. Save it for the tournaments.
(I reserve the right to withdraw all of these notes when I next win a big pot with AK – in fact, AK is a very profitable hand for me, but only because I play aggressively with it and rarely show it down)
There’s a joke – the definition of a thinking fish is someone who
thinks about your hole cards and always puts you on AK. And therein
lies the problem.
