some observations...

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jasper5408 United States. Jun 10 2009 15:23. Posts 820

after playing nl 25 again for a while, pretty happy with my success. i got owned with one ridiculous set up though, it involves me raising AK and getting a limp/call.

flop: AK2

donk leads, i raise, donk shoves, i literally giggle and call

turn/river: xx

i see pocket 22 and i want to cry. but for some reason i still find it really funny and can't help but laugh out loud. this hand pissed me off only because i thought about all the AQ AJ, KQ KJ, QJ, JT, QQ JJ hands that may call me, but i completely forgot about 22's (not like i was gonna fold but still).

anyway at nl25 everyone folds to 3 bets -_-
so my plan is to 3 bet light and just call with AA KK QQ JJ vs Reraising. (if this is bad please tell me why its bad)

also despite the previous hand i ran really well with AK. i played it alot differently than i normally do however. instead of always reraising AK i started calling pf more often. I'm starting to really like this hand! it completely dominates AQ AJ KQ KJ KT QJ which i find are the fishiest hands ever. i mean i've known this for a long time but never really appreciated it i guess.

anyway my question is why do we raise AK? if it folds weaker Ax and Kx are we not just strengthening the range of our opponent? pocket pairs prob still call to set mine but that's 50/50 i guess. i mean factoring out the power of position, why do we raise AK? i love getting 3 streets of value with this hand with a K high or an A high flop against AQ or KQ. well here are some reasons (please correct or modify).

Basically i'm trying to figure out at what point does value betting become bluffy (in general not just AK, obv when more hands beat you vs lose to you)

-they gonna call with AQ AJ KQ KJ KT. i feel this is partially true depending on opponent. if opponent folds these hands do we still reraise?
-AK is so awesome why not put more money in the pot? i think that's a pretty good argument. it's +EV
-AK will sometimes fold lower pp so less risk of getting set mined.

i think it's also hard to separate the reasons from raising in general vs specifically raising with AK
obviously raising usually implies position which has a plethora of advantages by itself.

0 votes

auffenpuffer Finland. Jun 10 2009 15:54. Posts 1429

so my plan is to 3 bet light and just call with AA KK QQ JJ vs Reraising. (if this is bad please tell me why its bad)

Is good

We do not always raise AK. If your opponent really does fold out weaker aces and other hands theres nothing wrong with flatting. In general however AK is so good hand that we want to play big pots with it => raisydaisy

rednalluk Sweden. Jun 10 2009 16:21. Posts 626

If you've got a HUD I'd use the squeese-stat to see when i can flatcall with big hands with the hope of "squeesy" doing what he does best so we can get it in Hellmuth-style (=setting a tarp)