No Limit Hold Em you raise 3.5bb from UTG+1 with A K

You are called by cut off and BB.


What flop do you like and after picking, imagine the bb checks, what do you do?

I'm liking K73. The only hand I'm worried about is 77, with a little chance of 33 depending on my opponent. With the AJ flop, I could be behind AJ. With the third flop, I could be against any pocket pair or a set, or possibly a made straight, etc. All this depends on my opponents, however. On the 993 flop all the pocket pairs have me in bad shape compared to the K73 flop. I'm interested in taking the pot down right there, so I go ahead and bet the pot or a little under.

I like K, 7, 3

Pot it.

5,7,9 / heart flop is interesting, but the K flop means my hand has hit.

Keep in mind that you want to get the maximum value from your hand, do you still like TPTK with the K vs flush draw vs A with back door straight draw, vs missed but also probably missed them flop?

If it was straight winning an AAA flop is best, but no value.

I like the two hearts one because if I bet and someone raises I get to push, I love pushing

definately prefer the K 7 3 flop, yes we have a flush draw on the heart flop, but there is a chance of a straight there to, and we may not hit the heart. much prefer K high flop for that reason

I must be crazy but I chose the A high flop, because Im really only scared about 44 and AJ. With a K high flop, if you get action, you are almost always beat, where worse hands are more capable of callin with the A high flop.

Cash game ?

Deep stacks ?

Let's say tournaments, more likely to have a mixture of bad and good players.

Average stacks, middle level tournament

CU has you covered, bb less than you.

no reads, new table for you

Tournament, Average Stacks, Middle Stages

I want to win the pot and get some chips, not have to gamble and put some chips in the middle on a flush draw. I don't want to feel in the dark whether or not my opponent hit the board with low cards when I didn't hit it. I want chips, I bet the pot with the K73 flop, like I said earlier.

AINEC

if we get two folds, we've tripled our bet on this hand. if we do that all session, we're going to be a winner. close it out and move on to the next situation where we have advantage again. but then again, people have asserted that I don't understand the game.

ADD: Oh. Tourney. I STILL like it.

On the A high, K high and FD flops, I'm going broke or winning the hand, given that I start the hand with about 25-30 BB's and the pot is 12BB's post flop. So it comes down to which flop will I win the most chips on average. The flush draw has the highest variance, as set and straight draws are going to be competing against my overs+FD. I think the K high flop is most likely to give us no action. That might be the one flop we can get away from if the stack are deep enough. The Ace flop will bring action from AQ and another AK and AT and worse sometimes, so I think we'd have to go broke assuming medium stacks.

Since the pot is already pretty big relative to our stack, I prefer picking the pot up on the flop. If we were deeper, the flush draw hand is very enticing.

Also being a tourney, while I think the push is +EV on the FD flop, it also risks a lot and gets called by few hand we have much of an edge on.
While we can pick up the K high flop with a 2/3 pot bet.
And the Ace high flop, we get plenty of action even when we are ahead.
Overall, at the stakes I play, I prefer the Ace high flop for best combination of visibility and action while still ahead, and taking the pot down often on the flop

what TB17 said

In a tourney I'm betting 1/2 - 3/4 of the pot on any of these flops, so it's pretty irrelevant to me. If I get raised, I'm also probably pushing most of these in a tourney. The last one is of course the worst, because I have to fold to a raise, but I'll go broke on any of the other three.

I'd rather draw to the nut flsuh with with Ax suited rather than AKs.

You can get away if you hit your overcard and it isn't good, but the main reasoning is that someone can make the second nuts against you... more likely to lose their stack with the K-high as opposed to the Q.

favorite flop - QJ10 rainbow; bad players will go nuts on this flop drawing to a split or worse...

Still, the flops will vary in their likelihood of leading to you getting paid off by worse hands, or picking up the post on the flop, or being outdrawn. Just because you are willing to go broke on the 1st 3 doesn't mean they are all the same EV.

Definitely the king high flop since we don't have to worry about two pair beating us. Unless the game we're playing in is a total rock garden, we'll get paid off by plenty of KQ, KJ, type of hands. Also, I lead for 2/3 of the pot on every single one of these flops.

Funny I had this flop last night on my AK off hand, got all the money in against A10, king on river for split.


I like the Ace high flop myself, mainly because you can would probably try to represent an ace here with JJ, so people are more likely to call with week aces.

The King flop seems to be a less likely way to make more money. Unless the other players have weak kings, they are going to assume AK here and fold to no draws.

The FD can give you the nuts, which is always nice, but since it's umade, it can cost you. More of a gamble, but with more potential profits. Problem of course being squeezed between two players can ruin this chance.

The total miss is a good one to represent a pp, which could win you the pot often times here.


Just curious what others hope to see when they raise with AK

I knew you were smart

The A/K flops are obviously the "safest", and we've got a decent chance of getting paid off if someone's on a weaker A/K. That said, I still prefer the two overs plus NFD. Better chance of getting value. Maybe I just like to gamboool. I give slight deference to preferring the third in a deepish stack or cash situation.

Cobalt,

we are in a tourney, with typical stacks.
thus the pot represents a large part of the picture here.,
I'd agree with deep stacks that the fD looks good.

Had you fooled for some time though didn't I?

Tried to disclaim myself.

I'm not completely sober when writing this post, so take this with a grain of salt...but. I pick up the pot on just about any of these flops b/c people who play tournaments are bitches for the most part. Still, I'll take any of the A/K flops or the NFD flop and I think they're all pretty similar. Obv on the A high flop you sometimes get paid by a weaker Ace and on the flush draw flop you'll sometimes beat a hand like TT, but in a tourney it's pretty irrelevant to me, all of the three are pretty similar. If you force me to choose I guess i take th A-high flop though.