Can't get hand converter to work. I was playing in a SNG and was dealt AK. There were a couple of calls and I went all in thinking I will either make 150 in blinds and limps or get called by either a pocket pair and be 50:50 or if I am lucky AQ or AJ ( I have even been called by hands like K 10s before!). I wonder whether I was too keen to get all my chips in pre flop on this hand.

I can see from this hand that since I flopped a King had I of made a smaller raise and then a big bet on the flop the pair of 9's would have been making a mistake in calling. Equally had I have not flopped a King or Ace I could have got away without losing all my chips.

What do people think?


#Game No : 2871228448
***** Hand History for Game 2871228448 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $10 Buy-in + $1 Entry Fee Trny:16510614 Level:3 Blinds(25/50) - Friday, November 04, 21:11:31 EDT 2005
Table Table 35237 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 1: Mr_Voice ( $550 )
Seat 4: atldawg ( $275 )
Seat 6: WotaWaster1 ( $670 )
Seat 7: lsukajn ( $2810 )
Seat 8: alecsdad94 ( $145 )
Seat 9: greek521 ( $1155 )
Seat 10: GAYANK ( $2395 )
Trny:16510614 Level:3
Blinds(25/50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to WotaWaster1 [ Kd Ah ]
alecsdad94 folds.
greek521 calls [50].
GAYANK folds.
Mr_Voice calls [50].
atldawg folds.
WotaWaster1 is all-In [645]
lsukajn folds.
greek521 calls [620].
Mr_Voice folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5s, Kc, Tc ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8h ]
WotaWaster1 shows [ Kd, Ah ] a pair of kings.
greek521 shows [ 9c, 9d ] three of a kind, nines.
greek521 wins 1440 chips from the main pot with three of a kind, nines.

Beavis and I have had this disagreement on how to play AK in an almost identical situation, you can search the treads for what both of us had to say.

This situation is slightly different in that there are 2 calls in front of you (In mine, I was the SB also, facing a call from EP and a raise from LP). I think it's tough. I think you want to raise most of the time here - but given your low M, it's hard not to see how you don't raise all in.

Let's say you raise to 200. It's then 150 for them to call $350, or 2.3:1 odds. That's a pretty automatic call for a lot of hands based on pot odds. If you raise any more than $300, you're committing 1/2 your stack and likely pot committed.

With your stack, I think going all in is the right play in this situation.

I don't know Marm, hate to disagree with you after having not looked at the forum in 6 months :-p but I don't think AK is strong enough for a stop and go. I don't do that with anything but AA or KK, sometimes QQ short handed. You will miss the flop more than you hit it with any two cards right? So you want a made hand to do that with. The point of a stop and go (as I understand it) is to get them to pot commit themselves preflop by calling with a hand they would fold with if you pushed in. That way they pretty much have to call when you push after seeing the flop. So by design you wind up with very little fold equity when the stop and go is working. I think AK is a hand you really want to see 5 cards with. The best way to do that is to go all in preflop. When you push preflop there are four likely results: you win the blinds, most times its a race situation, occasionally you'll have em dominated, very rarely you're porked when they have AA or KK. Two of those are good, one is nuetral and the unlikely one is bad.

If you make it 300, you'll only have 300 left to bet with and no fold equity. Make it 150 or 200, and make a pot sized bet on the flop regardless of the flop.