I have noticed an interesting circumstance, repeated multiple times. A Player with some hand, maybe even AK in early position raises. The flop comes missing him completely and someone behind hots their 10, or Jack, or whatever. That person who missed bets. and the person who hit calls. The next card is a small card that gives the hold of the pair two pairs. The initial raaiser now goes all in. And two pair calls. Naturally the initial raiser did nothing wrong in his his first raise or even his second, as he rightfully might have reasoned or thought that he had outs.
But what could he have been thinking with his All In with air. Does he honestly still think he has the best hand after getting called on several street?
Overplaying a big hand seems to be a trend these days. I chalk it up to too many people watching too much TV poker. But this is one of the many musings I have about poker.
The truth is I’ve been BOTH of those players from time to time. Some of it can be attributed to the initial bettor’s table image. If experience with him/her shows them to be fooling around more than I consider rational, I might well take a shot at them, just to see what intel I can get, especially in ring games.
I’ve been this player before. It is not a good play, but there can be a thought process behind it. As the original raiser, you should have a range advantage (in this case meaning you can have all of the overpairs on a safe looking flop, like TT+). That means that you can represent a hand that beats top pair. So, if the flop comes 237, a player holding A7/79/78/76 could still be way behind if you can have all pairs 88+ in your range. Plus, AK can improve to top pair any time an A or K hits, which creates equity to semi-bluff.
What kinds of hands is the caller preflop and on the flop likely to be holding? They called a raise preflop, so on a low dry board they can have sets like 22/33/77 or overpairs like 88-TT, but there really shouldn’t be much else that they are confident enough to call with. The player with AK should expect to get a lot of folds by shoving (assuming that they would also bet this aggressively when they actually do have an overpair) because it definitely looks like they have JJ+ and an A or K on the river should still give them the best hand ~10% of the time against their opponent’s range. They can’t know if their opponent has 2 pair, a set, top pair, a draw, or nothing at all (a float on the flop).
It depends on what EP raises. If EP raises with only premium, then it is correct to go all in with every hands since he/she has so many overpairs and can bluff with every AK. The stack to pot ratio in your case is way too small to fold overpairs even if the people behind will only be calling with 2 pair+.
big slick is something most players ranked between 10k and above think are golden preflop…you will see them go all in or raise massive preflop…if they miss the flop with cards below most definitely they go all in with a hope two overcards is good enough a winner or the others simply fold…they are too blinded and married to their hand to think otherwise…the best way to play Ak is cold call or just a value bet…in early middle part of the tourneys…
So best way to play AK early or midway through a tourney is “cold call or just a value bet, without being too blinded and married to the hand”, but at the final table with 9 players, the best way becomes a preflop all in?
yes that’s my opinion…pretty much you get respected players on the final table moreover check the stack of the players if short stacked just value bet as short stacked may go all in any time to be in the money …as a thumb rule but above all make a judgement of the players on the table as we play everyday and pretty much everyone knows how they play…and if it one goes by reputation most know I wont go all in with crap…if you need more information on my opinion please send me a message before this page gets blocked.
