AK hand in 1/2 NL live game

[idog519]

Hey guys,

Iceman and everybody else knows me from my infrequent posts on UPF and now here. This site rocks by the way! Anyways, I'm at the local club playing 1/2 NL with max buyin of $250. I have around that much when I get AK on the BB. Early position player raises it to $12 (standard raise) it folds around to LP who reraises to $25. My AK doesn' t look to good anymore if I didn't know my opponent. The reraise is very loose and will reraise with any pocket pair higher than 8's. So I decide to reraise $25 more to isolate him. Early position calls...hmm...late position obviously calls. The flop comes AJ6 rainbow. I lead out for $60 EP raises it to $120. LP folds. Now I go into the think tank. EP is a tight/ passive player who knows that I am a strong player and woiuld only reraise me if he has a monster hand, especially in a pot like this. He is too tight to have AJ or 66 so the only thing I'm losing to is JJ. Which he could probably having especially since he limped and called a reraise preflop. I checked his stack and he had another $140 left, meaning that my play is fold or all in. What would you do? Results will be posted...

[iceman5]

Based on your read of him, he can only have AA, AK, or JJ. I would fold.

[Felonius_Monk]

Agreed, if your read is accurate.

[McMonkey]

I agree as well, based on your read I can't see you being any better than a split pot here.

On another note, with a $12 raise and $25 re-raise I might consider dropping AK in the BB. You're going to be out of position and unsure how to proceed the rest of the hand even if you hit the flop (unless you hit it very hard). With 2 raises you're AK will have to improve for you to win and $23 to see a flop is a pretty hefty price considering the odds of catching an A or K.

And if EP is tight as you indicate then he must have a good hand to make the initial raise, so it should be expected that he'll continue for a re-raise. Maybe I'm being too tight, but then again patience is the key in NL...

[Bob314]

One other thing that I noticed was that your flop bet was barely more then 1/3 the pot. After you re-raised LP $25 more it is now $50 to go and 3 of you saw the flop so the pot is $150. You bet $60 into it. That is a pretty weak play there with TPTK. Why not lead for $100 or $120? Then it is your *opponent* who has the all in or fold decision to make instead of you because if he raises a bet of that size he isn't going to have much left behind it at all. You said your opponent is tight passive, so he probably wouldn't raise your weak bet with K-K or Q-Q like a more aggressive player might, so you still have a pretty easy fold here.

[Jav]