AK - Why You Aren't Playing It Aggressively Enough

Lately on the DeucesCracked forums, posts have been popping up about how to play AK correctly. I remember when I started out, I had the same questions. In the current state of online poker, the games are typically very aggro and the general consensus is to play AK like it's the nuts PF. But the posts are being made questioning this because when they look through theirs and filter AK, they are finding out that they may be losing some money with it, or not winning that much. Well, that may be a problem to itself, but they're posting to ask exactly why AK should be played aggressively, and suggesting perhaps they are losing money due to playing it this way. I popped in to throw out some reasons why I think (and most winning online players) AK should be played like it's AA or KK. I'm going to cross-post it here because you might find some value in it.


"If you're just looking at the dollar amount directly made with AK, you aren't looking at the whole story. When AK gets AIPF, you know it's almost 50/50 with ANY pair thru QQ, and crushed vs KK/AA. You aren't going to be getting AIPF vs AQ/AJ/KQ/KJ as often at the passive micro and smaller stakes (You will much more as the games get more aggressive with 3 and 4-betting though, and then it's even better as you get in in against dominated Aces!) So your amount made is going to be a bit deceiving if you think it represents the full effect AK has on your winrate.

The rest of the story can't be calculated on HEM/PT/etc. and that's how much extra money you make by playing AK aggressively, by way of:

1) Getting more action on AA/KK (and as games get more aggressive, that range widens). As a very simple example, if you 4bet or shove vs an opponent who has QQ, how much harder is his decision if you're range is QQ+ or QQ+/AK. Plug those two ranges into pokerstove vs QQ or even JJ and you'll see quite a difference. QQ vs QQ+ has about 20%, QQ vs QQ+,AK doubles up to 40% equity. 100% increase just because AK is in your range. This is very significant. AA/KK will show their thanks in dollar signs, fist pumps, loose women, fancy cars, and all night benders at the Spearmint Rhino O_O.

2) Winning the pot right away against hands that have really good equity. PP's and unpaired non-dominated hands like QJ etc have really good equity in the pot vs AK - slightly better than 50% and 40% respectively (give or take some depending on the exact cards, suitedness, etc.) When they fold their equity share, you make money. You might not win too many huge pots individually this way, but all the small and medium pots really add up. They are just more easily forgotten than the one big pot you might have gotten stacked in.

Things may change in the future as the game evolves or cycles, but as of the current state of online poker, aggressive AKs are better than ever."