The King-Ace ConspiracyNo win can be more elusive than when your hole cards reveal an ace and king. But here, Full Tilt pro Rafe Furst spells out how to avoid the slip with Big Slick.
Recently, a Full Tilt Poker player lamented that he’d gone broke with A-K in his last several tourneys, and he suspected that he was doing something wrong. A few questions revealed he was getting knocked out early when he put his A-K up against pocket pairs for all his chips. It’s a familiar lament.
Many people fall in love with A-K pre-flop in no-limit hold ‘em because they know they can’t be much worse than 50-50 to win the hand if they get all of their money in heads up. But rarely will you be much better than 50-50 to win an all-in showdown.
So why is A-K considered such a great starting hand? Folding equity. Under the right conditions, you can increase your pot equity to more than 50 percent by getting your opponents to fold in situations where they shouldn’t.
By putting your opponents in a bind where they must first call you and then have to beat you in a race, you can turn a hand that is 50-percent to win with all the money in pre-flop and turn it into a hand that is a 75-percent favourite or better.
The mistake many inexperienced players make is not giving their opponents a chance to fold. They look down to find A-K and can’t wait to get all their money in the middle and race.
3 keys to get the most out of A-K pre-flop:
1. Jam with A-K, but don’t call all-in with it.
2. Raise enough when you have A-K to give your opponents a chance to fold.
3. Don’t raise so much that the only hands that are willing to call you are those that have you dominated (A-A and K-K).
To execute these plays properly, it’s important to keep in mind the size of the blinds relative to your opponents’ stacks and your own stack. A-K loses much of its value when your opponents are short-stacked or pot committed—and therefore unlikely to lay down a hand—or when the blinds are very small relative to everyone’s stacks. These principles apply to both ring game and tournament play.
Getting back to my friend who kept busting early in tourneys with A-K, in the early stages, the blinds were very small relative to everyone’s stack size. This contributed to his breaking the three rules:
1. He called his opponents’ all-in raises when they had their expected pocket pairs.
2. He jammed only after his opponents were pot-committed.
3. After getting gun shy from having his A-K cracked a few times, he made his raises way too big to “protect” his hand, but then was only getting called once he was beat.
This is one of those instances where looking at short-term results can lead to long-term improvements. |
