Let’s take a look at a game of Poker Strategy: Ace-King.
While it’s possible to squeeze a profit out of an Ace-King (A-K) pre-flop, once the flop comes, the situation changes. Let’s say you raise with A-K all the way to the button. Blinds are at $50-$25. You have $10,000 in chips. The flop comes 4-4-7. You have nothing but your Ace. If you put in a big raise of 3x the blind amount, you will surely get one or more callers. However, if you bet on the flop as well, it could well be two or three callers.
Now, if you think your Ace is good and you have a strong hand, you should bet it. Why? You have maybe only a pair, but if you raise, you might get a re-raise. You’ll still be up against At least one other player with a decent hand. If he calls you, at least you can take the pot, if not, well, you run the risk of being a chip leader with a hand like A-K.
If you can’t bet your hand, you pretty much have only two choices: fold, or bet. Here’s a rule to follow: if you’re not sure, raise. You might win a small pot, or lose a big one vioepoker.com. No point in waiting for Ace King or 5-6 to come out when you have the best hand, you want to win!
When you do get your Ace, again, if you’re certain you’ve got the best hand, bet it. Again, you don’t want to slow play this hand. If you’re called, bet it again. You might get a call. If you’re not called, you have the option of raising the pot, trying to get maximum value for your hand, or you can check and hope you hit your Ace.
Proper use of Ace-King (and Ace, for that matter) on the flop to Semi-Bluff
An Ace or King on the flop serves 2 purposes. A short-term help to your poker hand, and 2 long-term roles to your betting strategy.
For 2 reasons, you can’t bet this hand as an automatic long-term winner. 2 reasons.
- The odds of you hitting the Ace or King are so low, that nobody would possibly call you with (a) such a low hand, or (b) such a high hand and a drawing hand would be fairly close. And there’s no way that someone would put you on two pair, or even just Ace or King.
- If you did happen to get lucky, it might be in a hand where you paired your Ace or King, but there are no guarantees that you’ll win the low.
So the advice here, when you get dealt A-K or Ace King, is to try to see a flop for as cheap as possible. If you’re up against multiple players and a flop is being shown for cheap, you can often get a little bit more aggressive and catch some guy in a situation that, off the bat, is not a very good one.
However, you should not get carried away with a high flop hit. If you’re up against some very tight players and a low flop hit, throw in the occasional big raise to try to, once again, get value for your hand.
And that’s it. I played this about 20 minutes ago and I’ve made a lot of money out of it. Been up around $30,000 in a short span, but my main focus has been on quality hands such as pocket 9’s, 10’s, and even some singe opening up of the top pair. And that, more often than not, has paid off.
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