Playing AK: the Basics

Introduction

In this article

• AK as a drawing hand
  
• Not overestimating AK
  
• Most common mistakes
  

Many say that AK is like Anna Kournikova: looks
good, but rarely wins. The reason why people say this is that AK
is much harder to play than you would expect, especially after
connecting with the flop. When playing AK, many players win a lot of small
pots, only to lose the occasional monster pot. For these players this
leads to AK being a hand that more money is lost on than won.

The misconception that AK is unlucky is not caused
by the strength or weakness of the hand. It is caused by players
overestimating it and therefore getting into the habit of playing it
incorrectly right from the start of their carreer. As opposed to high
pocket pairs like AA or KK, you need to play AK with more flexibility. To play AK profitably in the long run, you need to be able to recognise specific situations, which require different courses of action.

The aim of this article is to attempt a structured analysis of the AK
phenomenon. As usual in No-limit Hold´em,
there is no fail-proof recipe for positive results with AK. Instead,
this article tries to shed light on factors that you should take into
account in each hand, so that you can make decisions that produce
the highest expected value. Numerous example hands will help illustrate
the theoretical concepts.

Basics

To start with, we'll take a look at what you
could call the 'objective worth' of AK. Despite the fact that what this
section of the article says will seem obvious to you, this is where we
must start. This section is about the basics of playing AK that must be
understood so that you can build on them. Therefore, you shouldn't just
browse through this section. You should really study and internalize
it.

AK is a strong starting hand. To be precise,
AKs is the fourth strongest starting hand, after AA, KK
and QQ. AKo is the fourteenth strongest, weaker than all pocket pairs.
Despite being that strong, AK is still a drawing hand, i.e. you will
usually have to improve to get the best hand (ignoring all-in
situations in the late stages of tournaments and heads-up games).
AK only rarely wins unimproved at the showdown, which is partly because
there are only rarely situations where you should go to the showdown
with AK unimproved.

Nevertheless, you sometimes see people calling big
bets after failing to improve their AK hand, thinking that they might
still improve, or wanting to show their opponent AK after losing.

If you don't count the straight and flushes you
can get with AK, you are drawing to TPTK with six outs. You will hit an
ace or king on the flop 33% of the time. If we miss the flop, the odds
for hitting an ace or king by the river are 1:3,1. If we again miss on
the turn, the odds for the river are 1:6,8.

Here are some probabilities for AKo and AKs winning against various other starting hands in pre-flop all-in situations:

	A K	A K
A A	11.5%	7%
K K	33,5%	29,6%
A Q	69%	67,5%
A Q	73%	71,7%
Q Q	46%	42,6%
2 2	49,8%	46,7%
K Q	75%	72,6%
Q J	66,4%	64%
7 6	60%	57,5%
7 2	69%	66,8%

In Fixed Limit Hold´em we often get the correct
odds for draws. However, lets assume that we aren't getting the correct
odds for a call. In Fixed Limit Hold´em this often means we should fold.

In No-Limit Hold´em this is different, and a call may be justified.
This is because in No-Limit Hold´em your decisions are based on implied
odds, which isn't the case in Limit Hold´em.
Implied Odds take into account the money you'll get from the opponent
on the flop, turn and river if your draw hits and your opponent still thinks he has the
best hand, and will therefore call our value bet(s). The amount of
money that you can expect to get on later streets if your draw hits is
much higher than in Limit Hold´em, as you can choose the betsizes
yourself in No-Limit Hold´em.

However, with AK you have very poor implied
odds. This is because an ace or a king on the board will make
even an unalert opponent suspect that you have a pair. The situation in
which AK is most profitable is one where your opponent has a weaker
ace. Another profitable situation is one where the opponent is on a
draw and calls our value and protection bets. If we think the opponent is
on a draw, it is our job to make sure that the opponent doesn't have
the right pot odds for the draw and to keep his implied odds low.

We have seen that the implied odds for AK are low. The opposite applies to the reverse implied odds for AK.

The term 'reverse implied odds' is used in situations where the
implied odds are lower than the current pot odds, i.e. situations where
you don't expect bets more on later streets that could be added to the
pot odds, but instead expect to win less on
average than the current pot-odds promise.

To simplify, when we use the term 'reverse implied
odds' in this series of articles we mean the amount of money that we
will lose to our opponent if we hit our draw, because our hand is good,
but is actually worse than our opponents hand and we may even have been
drawing dead.

Reverse implied odds make a big difference when
playing AK in two kinds of situation, which we have each illustrated
with an example situation:

• Situation Type A: Our opponent has AA or KK, so that we are beat even if we connect with the flop.

  Example 1

  NL 100 SH
  Hero ($100)
  BB ($100) (16/5,5/30/3)

  Preflop: Hero is MP with A K
  UTG folds, Hero raises to $4,00, 3 folds, BB raises $12,00, Hero calls $8,00.

  Flop: ($24,50) A 6 2 (2 players)
  BB checks, Hero bets $16, BB calls.

  Turn: ($76,50) K (2 players)
  BB bets $30

  We hit two pair on the turn and our opponent is obviously willing to pay. It looks like our implied odds in this hand are very good.
  

• Hero raises to 60, BB is All-In, Hero calls.

  Our implied odds are good? Really? Our opponent is a rock. He makes a
  3-bet against UTG+1, plays check/call on the flop and donk-bets the
  turn. What he's holding is obvious with this betting pattern.
  

• River: ($200,50) 8

  BB shows A A, three of a kind, Aces.
  Hero shows A K, two pair, Aces and Kings

  Contrary to the opinion that was posted in the forum, the turn is in
  fact not a good card, but a bad card for us. One of the hands of the
  opponent's range that we were beating (KK) now beats us and it's
  unlikely that A6 or A2 are in the opponent's range, so it's unlikly
  that we were behind against these hands on the flop and then ahead on
  the turn with better two pair. In fact, the only thing we can hope for
  after the opponent's bet on the turn is a split-pot. After the donkbet
  on the turn, you can actually find a fold, although that decision would
  admittedly be very hard to make at the table.

• Situation Type B:
  We miss the flop, make a continuation bet and get called. The turn is
  an ace or a king. We bet again and the opponent still doesn't fold.
  These are the situations where AK is often played too aggressively.

• Example 2 - Reverse Domination

  NL 100 SH
  Hero ($100)
  BB ($100)

  Preflop: Hero is CO with A K
  2 folds, Hero raises to $4,00, Button calls $4,00, 2 folds.

  Flop: ($9,50) Q 6 8 (2 players)
  Hero bets $6,50, Button calls.
  
  Turn: ($22,50) A (2 players)
  Hero bets $15, Button calls.
  
  River: ($52,50) T (2 players)
  Hero bets $40, Button raises All-In, Hero calls.

  Hero shows A K, a pair of Aces.
  Button shows A 8, two pair, Aces and eights. The button will often show 6 6 or 8 8 too.

  These situations are relatively common. Players often
  mistakenly think they have the best hand when an ace or king comes on
  the turn. Many players tend to overplay these situations because they
  think something like 'now I've beaten his overpair and he won't believe
  that i have the A/K, as I wouldn't have bet the flop with AK'. However,
  if the opponent stays in the hand on the turn despite the A or K, then
  this usually isn't a sign for an unimproved medium pocket pair, but
  instead for a much stronger hand.

• Both hands are perfect
  examples of the problem of low implied odds and high reverse implied
  odds with AK. If, let's say, the opponent had QQ or JJ to 99 in example
  one, then we would have stopped getting value out of him on the flop or
  possibly on the turn.

Most common mistakes

Before we examine how to play AK on individual
streets in the next articles, we'll take a look at the most common mistakes. Again, we must
understand the basic problems so that we can go on to understand the
more detailed and complex concepts.

As AK usually doesn't improve to a hand better
than TPTK, it's important to reduce the number of opponents before the
flop. The probability of winning with TPTK decreases
dramatically as the number of opponents increases.

• A K only has 33 % equity vs A Q and 2 2.
• A K only has 37.6 % equity vs 5 5 and 8 9 .

This is why it is usually best to raise or 3-bet preflop. That way, you can avoid giving hands like 8 9
the correct odds to draw. For example, if UTG raises to 4BB and we call
from MP, then we're inviting the players behind us to call with hands
like 8 9,
as they would be getting the correct odds to call. We will also have a
positional disadvantage, being sandwiched between the UTG player and
another player.

AK is not only sometimes played too passively, but
also sometimes too aggressively. You very often see automatic all-ins
with AK online, especially out of the blinds. A preflop all-in can be
right, but only in the right situation.

Example 3 - from the forum:

NL 400
MP3 ($400)
Hero ($400)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A Q
MP3 raises to $16.00, Hero raises to $50.00, 3 folds, MP3 raises to $124.00, Hero calls $74.00.

comment 1:
„AQ----fold to PF4bet
AK----push against PF4bet
no maths, just my rule for these situations"

comment 2:
„I think this is fine as a default line“

Even if these comments aren't completely serious,
a lot of people play this way, which leads to a lot of unprofitable
situations. We will discuss preflop all-ins in more detail later on.

As is mentioned above, AK has low implied odds and
high reverse implied odds. If we hit either an ace or a king( but not
both ), we have TPTK, but this means that we only have a pair.
Therefore overestimating the strength of TPTK is a serious and costly
mistake, especially if you hit TPTK on the turn or river(examples 1 and
2).

Some players always play AK the same way, not
paying enough attention to the texture of the board, thinking something
like "If I hit the flop, I'll bet 2/3, check behind on the turn and
then bet for value on the river or catch a bluff. If I miss the flop, I'll make a standard continuation bet. If I get called and don't
improve, then it will be an easy check/fold."

This method may make decisions much easier, but doesn't produce maximum profit.

This issue is related to the previous issue. If we hit TPTK on the flop, we will usually bet the flop. If we get called, we must decide how to continue on the turn. Do we bet for value and protection or just check for pot control?

The decision is based mainly on the texture of the board, but not only. It is especially important to take into account the type of opponent you are playing. However, many players either don't understand the concepts of protection vs pot control or are not able to apply them when they are involved in a pot.

In Hold´em, it is better to play in position than out of position. This is especially important for playing TPTK. If we are going to be out of position post-flop with AK, we should play it more aggressively pre-flop.

However, it is't only our own position that's important. The position of a player who raises in front of us is very important for us. On the one hand, we'll, of course, 3-bet from the blinds against a raise from the button, but on the other hand, if the UTG player raises and we are in the blinds, then we should just call. This is because we'll usually know where we are at post-flop, and will try to keep the pot small. The next article will go into detail on the subject of position.

As is the case in every hand, the style of your opponent is very important. The applies to pre-flop and post-flop play. While a 3-bet from opponent A may mean little, a 3-bet from opponent B may be a reason to fold.

Summary

AK is a problem for many players. On the one hand, you learn early on that AK is a very strong hand, but on the other hand, you keep getting into sticky sitiations with AK. As we have seen, the problem is simply that AK and resulting TPTK hands are overestimated.

The articles that follow deal with the play on the flop, turn and river with AK and various hands that AK can improve to. You can find the article on pre-flop play here.