In My Opinion I Feel AKo and AKs are Over-Rated As Cap Hands ???
I agree they are strong hands .. but still not a made hand ... just a drawing hand.. and what I've noticed is, if you raise and you get a bit of action the chances of winning decrease because other player have the cards your looking for ie A or K !!! Does anybody else agree they should be demoted to raise/call ???
Lets Have A Debate About It... ♦
AK = without any doubt a hand that should be Capped.
U should try to read this thread from me. Maybe it will help u with playing AK.
http://www.pokerstrategy.org.uk/wbb_en/thread.php?threadid=5458&hilightuser=58807
Hello wilm,
i will try to tell you why AKo, especially AKs, should be capped preflop.
The main reason is that we want to put money in the pot if we've got an Equity Edge. For Instance there are 3 players involved in the hand. The avg equity is 100/3 = 33,33%. With AKx we have got almost always more as average Equity. if you gonna add 2 random Hands and AKx in pokerstove, you will see that it is true. The Equity Relation is:
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
778,679 games 8.219 secs 94,741 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 25.853% 24.95% 00.90% 194276 7033.17 { random }
Hand 1: 25.893% 24.99% 00.91% 194576 7049.17 { random }
Hand 2: 48.254% 47.32% 00.93% 368500 7245.67 { AcKd }
Already in the earliest Street Preflop we should try to make money by pushing Equity Edges. It's money you'll gain statistically.
Furthermore you'll get your opponents bound to the pot and they will pay you off much more.
The mathematical approach behind is that with raising/capping preflop we are trying to simulate an All-In like in NL.
We want to push (raise/3bet...) as long as we have the best hand...
I understand all the maths behind it but from looking at poker tracker .. My losses with just high card is pretty high and from looking at the hands I play AK is the poorest performer ??
Also AJ is also associated with my higest losses... I do realise over time the stronger hands will balance out..
I just find if your capping AK and you have action at the table.. you tend to be behind ?? I mean 22 can beat you where as when you start with AA KK QQ JJ TT 99 your prob ahead ?? also its easier to find out if your Pair are losing with a raise ?? I still follow the chart exactly as it is set out but have reservations about AK ... sorry but its because of poker tracker I can see its weakness !!
Originally posted by fdwarrior
if some random villain 3-bet preflop TT+,AK we dont have the best hand
And whats your view ?? as a gold member you obviously have plenty of plays involving AK
Originally posted by willfox
I understand all the maths behind it but from looking at poker tracker .. My losses with just high card is pretty high and from looking at the hands I play AK is the poorest performer ??Also AJ is also associated with my higest losses... I do realise over time the stronger hands will balance out..
I just find if your capping AK and you have action at the table.. you tend to be behind ?? I mean 22 can beat you where as when you start with AA KK QQ JJ TT 99 your prob ahead ?? also its easier to find out if your Pair are losing with a raise ?? I still follow the chart exactly as it is set out but have reservations about AK ... sorry but its because of poker tracker I can see its weakness !!
THe interesting part with AK comes after the flop.
We are also raising cause we dont want any multi way pot.
The psychological problem with AK is that you "know it is a capping" hand which leads to the wrong conclusion that it is on the same scale as AA or any other higher pocket pair. but of course it is not.
By the way later on, especially at SH games we will play also the lower and mid pairs more aggressive. But for FR games where you are in multiway pots more often this would not make sense 
Originally posted by willfox
I understand all the maths behind it but from looking at poker tracker .. My losses with just high card is pretty high and from looking at the hands I play AK is the poorest performer ??Also AJ is also associated with my higest losses... I do realise over time the stronger hands will balance out..
I just find if your capping AK and you have action at the table.. you tend to be behind ?? I mean 22 can beat you where as when you start with AA KK QQ JJ TT 99 your prob ahead ?? also its easier to find out if your Pair are losing with a raise ?? I still follow the chart exactly as it is set out but have reservations about AK ... sorry but its because of poker tracker I can see its weakness !!
You're right, AK is not that strong because it's not a premade pair.. that said, you're more likely to get a paired A or K than hit a set (three) with pocket pairs.
Therefore AK, more often than not, will win over any pocket pair except AA or KK.
It is however important to fold AK often in a 9-10 person game if you miss. As stated in the strategy guide, if you don't flop to it, fold it. If you're losing a lot of money from AK, you're probably playing it too far. You'll likely lose more money playing it then folding it if you hit nothing by the turn.
Assuming every single card has equal chances of landing (which from a theortical standpoint, it does), AK will make the strongest pair. Simply put, out of all the non-paired cards, those two cards are the strongest. It will also provide you with the strongest kicker.
As for why not just play pocket pairs? Because you'll only get them about 6% of the time, and meanwhile blinds are eating at your stack.
