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If you haven’t already, it’s a great time to brush up on playing Ace King and start by reading the Fundamental Play with Ace
King article . I can’t believe how many people I see at the microstakes limits that either overplay or underplay AK. I understand it’s a tricky hand so I’ve put
together this situational AK article to demonstrate some easy and tough AK spots and how you can handle them at some of the stakes you might be playing at.
Easy AK 3bet & Continuation Bet Spot
Here’s one of my own hands playing 100nl fullring on PokerStars. A player before me leads out with a standard raise and I give a standard 3bet raise to $11. Everyone folds and our
villain in the hand (whom I know to be a pretty passive player when he has nothing) calls and then checks the Q99 flop. Now, when you have AK and a Q flops usually it’s not a good thing
but his check on this board is all I need to know that he’s screwed. A solid cbet quickly gauges whether he connected with that Q or just let me take down a nice pot as it is.
Poorly Played AK
The names have been withheld here to protect the innocent. Our hero with AK makes a raise in a shorthanded game and the villain calls. The flop is A33 and our hero doesn’t
continuation bet. I don’t know why he doesn’t but he should have. This was critical mistake number one – not leading out with a bet with a flopped two pair with both a
straight and flush draw potentially available. On the turn our hero bets out (finally!) and unfortunately for him the villain raises big time with the flush filling. I don’t mind
the hero’s flat call here to see what might happen on the river (ideally it’s check-check for a showdown) but this should have sent alarm bells ringing. At the river our hero
wisely checks but the villain throws out yet another sign of tremendous strength by darn near potting it … and our hero probably knows he’s beat at this point but can’t fold it,
makes the call, and loses.
AK Suited from the Blinds
Sometimes you do want to disguise your hand in order to extract maximum value out of an opponent, and this is one of those hands that was played a little fancy but paid off for the hero. The
UTG player who is normally a TAGish type makes a raise. Now our hero has a big hand and most likely has our opponent beat but he flats because playing the 3bet pot OOP could be
tricky. For whatever other reasons, he flats the bet and sees a fun flop of Q7J with two hearts giving him draws to the nut straight and nut flush (and potentially a royal flush). Even if
we put our opponent on a Q or a J we’re still slightly ahead in the hand. Our hero doesn’t make a donk bet (defined as betting into a villain that you only flatted preflop) which
is the right move. The turn gives our hero the nut flush, and now our hero has to do something to get money into the pot and puts in about a half-pot bet. It doesn’t advertise
“flush!” and our villain gets cheeky and makes a raise. Now our hero could 3bet this, which in his mind would advertise the flush was hit on the turn. The river comes out a 7
which is actually a bad card (a previously beaten set is now a winning boat) but our hero doesn’t slow down and pushes almost a pot-bet at $30 into $34, which I like given the
circumstances. The villain can’t get away from his hand (for SOME reason) and calls down with 2nd pair. Given this hand was a flush vs 2nd pair I think our
hero read the situation correctly and got max value.
Similar to the last Hand
This hand is pretty similar in terms of post-flop play to the last. Our hero does a nice job isolating the limping fish and makes a great raise in the cutoff. At the flop our hero hits
TPTK (top pair top kicker) and doesn’t fall into the trap of allowing draws to see the turn for free and leads out with a real solid cbet (I like it!). The villain flats and we do see
one of the straight draws potentially fill but the villain checks giving our hero a definite ray of hope to take the hand down, so he fires again to the villain who flats. The river is a
complete blank and our villain checks AGAIN. This lets us know that we can be almost positive he didn’t hit the miracle straight with QJ, and is probably playing a weaker K or a hand
with a T in it. With $67 in the pot and our villain only having $53 our hero bets $20. Now, I think this might have been a mistake and shoving probably would have forced the villain to
call because the fish would have “felt committed” but the $20 bet isn’t horrible. The hero gets a call from the weaker hand and takes down a very nice pot.
Things to Remember:
- Don’t let an opponent see free draw cards when you hit your flop with AK. Make them pay for it.
- Definitely think about the hand ranges your opponent is playing and when you feel you’re ahead at the river,
try to imagine what the maximum bet they would call given their probable hand.
- It’s okay to play AK when severely OOP (out of position) like from the small blind by simply calling a raise
(not 3betting) and evaluating postflop.
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