How can you fold AK?!


I am finally back - I had a physical hard drive failure on Sunday last week and I haven’t had my computer since then. Good thing Steve enjoys posting, otherwise this place would be pretty boring…

Anyways, I’m back and I have a short story about a hand that caused quite a bit of controversy in my room.

Max and Adam are the roommates of Steve and myself - we all play poker a lot and we’re all decent poker players, but we disagree sometimes on strategies in certain situations. For example - Adam and Steve think I play flush draws too loosely in tournaments, Max and Adam sometimes get annoyed with my loose preflop play (only when I hit things, though), and sometimes we tell Steve he overplays the hands he is likely to be a coinflip on. Whatever, it’s good that we disagree because it forces us to think more.

Here is one of our disagreements -

Max was playing in a tournament and he was dealt AK&spades on the 2nd or 3rd hand. Someone moved all in, Max folded his AK, and Steve and I went nuts. Adam defended Max’s play and Max explained that he didn’t want to risk his whole tournament on AK.

Steve and I asked “Why the hell not?!” It’s the 2nd hand of the tournament, there are 2 hands that have him in huge trouble (AA or KK) and he has a few hands his opponent is likely to have dominated (A10-AQ). Anything else he’s a coinflip or better. Why not risk your tournament on AK this early?

It was a $5 tournament, he had no information on this player, and he stood a good chance of doubling up and being a good position to start building a big stack to compete later in the tournament.

Adam and Max thought that it was ridiculous to risk your tournament on what could have been a coinflip when you don’t have any information on your opponent. They thought it would be better to wait for a hand like QQ, KK, or AA and get someone all in. Obviously that would be better - but why not take a shot with AK? You’re 50% to hit top pair top kicker when the hand is all said and done.

Anyways, Max folded and Steve and I argued with Adam for a little while. I still think calling an all in with AK that early in the tournament is a great decision - you’re probably in great shape, maybe a coinflip, and it’s very unlikely you’re dominated.

What would you do? Fold AK or call an all in?

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3 Comments to “How can you fold AK?!”

Chris

December 4th, 2005 at 3:39 pm

If it comes down to a heads-up situation, I’m calling that bet every time. If I’m holding an Ace, I’m thinking there’s no frickin way dude over there is packing AA. Of course, I’d prefer AK suited to provide extra outs, but even so…I think AK is worth going to the grave over in 1 on 1.

And weren’t we talking about a $5 game? I’m all in.

Mitchell

December 5th, 2005 at 3:05 am

It would be an easy call. If rebuys are avaliable even easier.

Glenn Dixon

December 27th, 2005 at 12:08 pm

I gotta agree - early round, online idiot goes all in, you hold the Big Slick….yeah, you gotta call that one!

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