Archive for July, 2009
The Flop Includes An A Or A K Part2
The Flop Is Q-10-2
You bet out $2, the lion raises it to $4, and then the elephant reraises it to $6 to go. In this case, you need a J for a straight or an A or a K for a pair. You have to call the $6. You have to figure that at least one of your opponents has you beaten, even though one of them may have a hand like K-J, an open-ended straight draw. (You may even consider raising it again to make it $8 to go! Whoops, never mind, that’s a play for the advanced discussion, still to come.) The point of this example is that if what turns up on the flop gives you a straight draw, then you need to play your A-K. Three available aces, three available kings, and four of whatever card completes your straight draw (in this case four jacks) give you too many winning possibilities (pros call this having 10 “outs”) to fold right away.
The Flop Is 6-5-3
You bet out $2, and the lion calls. Then the jackal makes it $4 to go, and the elephant folds. What do you do now? You probably have the lion beaten, since he only called the $2 on the flop, and lions usually don’t merely call when they’re pretty sure they have the best of it. The jackal could easily have you beaten with a pair of deuces, fives, or sixes, and jackals play a lot of strange hands. But he is the jackal and he could just as easily have 7-8, A-4, A-3, 7-9, or 8-9, all of which give him a straight draw of one sort or another. If this is the case, then you are a favorite over his hand. (He has to hit something with only two cards to go, while you’re already winning and don’t need to improve to beat him.) You’re going to call the $2 raise anyway, so why not reraise, making it $6 to go? betting online
The reraise will probably cause the lion to fold his hand, isolating you (getting it down to just the two of you) against the jackal. If you don’t reraise, and the jackal does have 8-9, and the lion does have 0-0, you might end up losing the hand to the lion because you let him in cheap! This is the advantage of being the jackal; his erratic play sometimes causes you to put in extra bets against him. But aggressive play against the jackal is a good thing! Since he will play his drawing hands “fast” (raising and reraising), you will have a chance to win some big pots when he misses his hand. What I’m really trying to say is this: play your “A-K high” (the best nonpair hand) aggressively on the flop against the jackal when you think there is a decent chance he’s drawing. You can always fold your hand on fourth street or the river if you think the jackal has you beat.
We’ll talk more about how to play A-K on the flop in the intermediate discussion of limit Hold’em, to come.
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The Flop Includes An A Or A K
(For Example, A-9-4, K-10-7, A-ai-3, or K-Q-J)
You bet, raise, and reraise quite a bit because you have hit "top pair" with "top kicker." In every case where an A or a K hits the flop you will have top pair with top kicker (A-A-K or A-K-K), and this is a very strong hand in Hold'em! For example, if the flop is A-9-4, then you have a pair of aces with a king kicker. This hand will beat all other pairs of aces like A-Q, A-J, A-10, A-8, etc.
But let's suppose now that the flop is A-9-4 and someone is holding A-9. Your A-K would be losing on this flop, because A-9 now makes two pair, aces and nines. Still, for every time someone who plays a weak A-9 against your powerful A-K and beats you, you'll beat him more than two other times (that is, the A-K is slightly more than a 2.5 to 1 favorite heads-up against A-9). The point I'm trying to make is that A-K becomes very powerful when you catch an A or a K on the flop, and you should put in a lot of betting and raising on the flop when this is the case. Fortunes have been won and lost with A-K!
Now let's move on to a few examples of how to play the A-K when you miss the flop.
The Flop Is J-5-2
You bet out $2. The lion, Leo, raises, making it $4 to go; and the elephant, Earl, calls the bet. In this case you figure that one of your opponents has you beat, but you call $2 anyway, on the chance that an A, K, Q, or 10 will hit the board on fourth street. If an A or K hits, then you should bet out $4 on fourth street. But if a Q or 10 hits, then you will want to call a $4 bet (check and then call $4 if your opponents bet) because you have picked up a straight draw. Since you know you will call $4 when a Q or a 10 hits, you may choose to bet out $4, attempting to win the pot right there (but right now we are talking about play on the flop). So the play on the flop here is fairly simple: you bet out $2 and call the raise of $2.
The Flop Is and You Have g-g]
You bet out $2, and the lion raises it to $4 to go. The jackal calls $4. Now what do you do? Folding here isn't a bad option, because two of the cards that under other conditions you would like to see on the turn or river, [V] or [V], would make four diamonds on the board, so they're very likely good cards for someone else, bad cards for you. Still, it costs you only $2 to see if you can hit your hand. I would probably just fold for $2, but an expert could call the $2 bet, because he feels that he reads his opponents well enough to avoid getting too involved later on in the hand. The point I'm trying to make is this: sometimes, even though you have A-K, you have to fold your hand on the flop when the others raise you. You're not folding often, mind you, but situations where you face three suited connected cards like 0-0-0 or 0-0-0 on tne board,and y°u have none oi the
suited cards in your hand (like with 0-0), are )ust to° "kely to have helped someone else in the hand. Those two examples are the worst possible flops for your 0-0, and lt's Probably right to just fold your hand on the spot.
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