[Closed] NL5 FR AKo standard line?

Hi,

Best way for you to understand would probably be to take an hour to mess around with preflop ev calculations a bit. Bump it if you want me to elaborate on these.

We could probably write a book solely on these questions. I'll try and give some general interesting results without it taking 2 hours of my time.

First you can't really 4-bet without being committed with AK, it won't make sense against most players. Either they're super tight and there is no point in 4betting it in the first place, or they're not and they'll almost always have enough stuff in their 3-betting range to make 4-bet/calling AK profitable.

QQ and AK have different pros and cons obviously, tho when you run into KK+ you're screwed all the same. AK has blockers to KK+ while QQ hasn't, meaning if you have AK there are only 3 A 3 K left in the deck, so villain can only have 6 combos of KK+ instead of 12. It's important against villains who 3-bet a polarized trash/premiums range, since they'll fold more often when you 4-bet AK as a result. QQ generally has better playability when you're not really used to thinking in ranges and playing AK-high postflop since you'll miss 2/3 of the time especially out of position. Even tho flopping an A or a K with QQ is never fun either.

You'll always end up making educated guesses on what your opponents are 3betting you with. General consensus is usually to 4-bet AK and get it in as default unless villain is very tight in which case there is no shame in folding it, especially if you're out of position since playing postflop is a pain in the ass when you miss against decent players. Opinions diverge more about QQ since flat calling it out of position it's as hard to play, you can't really "miss" per se. From what i read people at microstakes always run into bigger pairs when they 4bet/call QQ so calling and playing postflop isn't bad. When you start going up you'll need AK/QQ in your 4bet/broke range (there are other ways to balance ranges but it's the most common one) otherwise you'll just get run over by people 3-betting all over the place.

Hope it helps.

Thanks alot, the fact we (holding AK) blocked half of his oportunity to have AA or KK was really intersting!

Made some calculations on the equlator and found out that AK vs the range:
pocket 10+, AQ+,AQs+ is a coinflip all in preflop. That makes for sure that AK is not good enought calling someones push/4-bet preflop I suppose?

QQ was 55% favourit against the same range but I still think QQ is fold vs most peoples pushes because not even fishy players use to push pocket tens and AQ specially often.

Let me just summarize what you said to find out if I´ve understood you.

Against a 3-bet in position: Calling with AK is fine
Against a 3-bet out of position: Pushing AK is fine, rather push into loose opponents. against tight players -> folding preflop is an option

with QQ:

Both in and out of position just calling a 3-bet is probably the best option vs unknown.

Hi,

Sounds about right. Just make sure you're aware of how people are playing and if you're decently sure you're up against very active players you have a license to felt these hands too.

About EV calculations, make sure you don't forget to take into account the times people will 3bet/fold into you so you have a clear picture of how it works in general, tho you might not see that many people 3-bet/folding at microstakes. Once you get higher, you'll start to see people who are 3-betting light and folding to a 4-bet with so much crap that you'll make money 4-betting them even tho you'll still run into KK+ every time they 5-bet shove on you.

Hope it helps.