alright guys. Heres a situation I know you all can understand.

You raise with [Kh] your standard raise 4x or 5x times the BB

You have anywhere from 1-4 callers and the flop is rags. checked to you, or you are first to act.
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Has anyone done a little study to try and find out what the most profitable move is? I would never bet out with nothing for 4 callers, even 3 is dangerous. But what about 2 or 1?

When I bet, I always bet near the pot on the flop. I was thinking of betting it everytime next month with 1-2 callers and tracking it to see what happens. By the end of the month, should have a good idea if it's worth it to bet.

Has anyone done anything similar to this? If so, what were your results? Maybe I can already use my pokertracker stats...I will look into it.

I did do a study on that a while back, but unfortunately, it wasnt very helpful. I was never able to come up with any one strategy that was a catchall and worded all the time.

I also did a study on what my results were if I bet the pot and got called when I was unimproved vs when I bet the pot and got called when I had paired up. The one thing I remember is that when you bet the pot and get called, youre not in a good a spot as you think. Most people wont call you down with AJ, so you have to wonder what theyre calling with that is going to win you a big pot. Its not as bad on Party because the stack are short, but with a 100Bb stack, you can just bet pot on every street or you'll get killed the times they have a set.

If you ever figure out a way to play AK that is more than marginally profitable, Id love to hear it, because I havent figured it out yet. Ive had a lot more success limping with it lately. Especially in EP

Definately not even close to a complete answer, but just a small observation. I found out recently that my results with AK on the lower ($25) tables were much worse than on the tables with higher stakes.

Against bad players the chance of one of them hitting a rag flop is about ten times larger than with good players in the hand, since the bad players will easily call the pf raise with A9s or something like that. So, against people who could easily call with Axs, only bet into the flop if there is not more than 1 of them. A call can mean anything from slowplayed set to flush draw to medium overpair to overcard + gutshot. Add to that the fact that they will not lay down a medium pair or overcards, you see that attempts to steal will cost you a lot of money. (In fact, I succeeded stealing with a pot-sized bet around 30% of the time, which is clearly not enough.)

Against decent players you can fire a pot sized bet, since they will fold their draws and maybe even a medium pair. Against any resistance, fold.

I do not like limping in EP. You raise to increase the number of favorable flops. In an unraised pot, a flop like [8h][Ts] is not favorable, especially against many limpers. In a raised pot, however, this kind of flop becomes favorable because there is a much smaller chance of people having hit it.
Just limping seems to me like a way of minimizing the losses. What flop do you hope for when you limp in and you see the flop 5 way? Anything without a K or A is already trouble, and even in the case of, say, [Jh][Ks] you have no idea where you're at.

You often hear that AK is a drawing hand, but I don't really see why. Drawing hands need many callers to give the right odds. But in the case of AK, many callers means that many of your outs are likely gone, especially in the "AnyAce" games, so that it becomes unplayable with most flops. Even if you hit your draw, it is not likely to be the best hand.

Pieter

Obviously if you limp in EP with AK you cant play it the same as when you raised with it. Im not betting a ragged flop if I didnt raise. Its a whole different scenario.
Believe me, when your up against KQ or KJ, you will make a bundle when you flop a king.

On the other hand, how many pepole call raises with KJ? Not many, so how are you going to win a big pot with a flopped king? Most times youre going to win a small pot or lose a big one if you cant lay down top pair top kicker.

I can understand that if you flop a K and are up against someone with a weaker kicker you get a lot. But (1) if you limp, the majority of flops is unfavorable for you, (2) even if you hit the flop you have no idea whether someone else hit it harder. With 5 limpers or so there are very few flops that should encourage you to invest a lot of money.
I don't think that after a pf raise you're likely to win a big pot, but I think that against decent opposition there is a reasonable percentage of flops that you can win a modest pot with, which makes the strategy profitable. And against weaker players your raises will get called by KJ or AQ, and in those cases you win a big pot, like in your scenario. And yes, if you cannot laydown TPTK you will lose a lot of money sometimes, but that should not be an argument for pf raising or not, because that can happen in either scenario.

How good are your results with limping? On which type of tables does that work for you?

Pieter

I was keeping track of my results where I limped with AK for a while and they were very good. Much better than my total results for AK.

One of the reasons they were so good was that sometimes the pot gets raised behind me and I call the raise. If I hit the ace or king on the flop, Im in really good shape. Most people with something like QQ or JJ will bet the flop with an ace or king if you check it to them. Then I can check raise them. Sometimes they have AQ and an ace flops, then its off to the races (no way theyre putting you on AK there).

If nothing else, its a good place to mix up your game and make it hard for people to put you on a hand. You shouldnt play any hand the same way every time.

I, like iceman, tend to limp with AK in EP. Because in limit the betting is fixed, it is easier to quantify the reasons for this although the example to follow has NL applications as well.

Let's say that you are playing $10/$20 and find yourself on the BB with AK. Let's further suggest that the SB has mucked and the person on the button has A6. If you check your option there is $50 in the pot (I took out a $4 rake and $1 jackpot to round the pot to $50). Let's suggest that the flop comes AT3. You bet out $10 and, simply because it gives you a worst case scenario, we assume that all players call. You opponent on the button is getting 9:1 on a call - a $10 call to win a $90 pot. His outs are the three 6's or - he is getting 14.6:1 card odds. If he calls, he is clearly making an error because the pot odds do not come close to justifying a call. The most common error players make in low limit no limit games is calling when they should be folding however, which means you gain (think fundemental theorum of poker) when he does.

Let's say though that you decided to raise $10 pre-flop. When the action gets back to the button, our hero is gettiong 9:1 on a call and even if he was wrong to call the first $10 - he is now clearly correct to call the raise. This is often the case incidentally, that a player even if he called the initial bet incorrectly, is correct to call subsequent raises because the pot odds have increased. The flop once again comes AT3 and you bet out. Assuming once again that everyone calls your bet - which is even more likely now because the pot is larger than it would have been in our previous example - the player on the button is now facing a $10 bet to win $140. He is getting $140:$10 or 14:1 on a call. Since his card odds are 14.6:1 he is clearly getting implied odds for a call and hence a call is correct.

If your opponents are making the mistake of calling when they should be folding, then you often insulate them from making that mistake by rasing and giving them the correct pot odds to call. They 'accidentally' make the correct move when they were ready willing and able to make a mistake. Despite one's ability to go all-in at any time in a NL game - NL, like limit usually has the larger bets toward the end of the hand - it is at this time that you want your opponent to make his mistakes - not pre-flop when the size of the bets are at their smallest and hence the cost of their mistakes are cheapest as well.