Should I raise or call?

[Buckeye Bandit 0]

Hey folks, new to the forum. I've played many home texas hold'em tourneys as well as online. My record is very good and I guess I consider myself more of a keen player than a good one. My biggest fallacy lies before the flop. When I find myself holding, say, and A-K unsuited and I'm the 4th player to bet... the 3 players before me make a simple call or a BB raise. Is this hand worthy of calling the raise or even re-raising? For the sake of simplicity, we'll say everyone at the table is at least reasonably good.I appreciate any feedback. This site kicks Ace!

[t-bone 0]

Yes!! Re-raise!! Yuo want as few callers as possible with this hand. This is a NL, correct? If it is, I usually make raise it up to 4-5x whatever the BB is. You want to get rid of all of htose limpers. What you DO NOT want is the BB seeing a free flop and then catching a junk two-pair to crack your top-pair top-kicker. You should even be happy not getting any callers preflop with this hand. Taking the blinds and a couple limpers out is a GOOD thing to do with AK.

[jayistheman 0]

usually with AK, if im not gonna raise it then i might as well fold. the thing with AK is that it is a good solid hand to make moves with before the flop. i never mind just taking a few pre flop bets and blinds with AK... (now with AA, its kinda depressing). u dont really wanna take a multiway flop at all with this hand in my opinion. thats why u always see people move in with it... its solid enough to have a fighting chance if u are called heads up... unless u are against AA or KK anyway.

[JFarrell20 1]

AK is almost always worth calling pre-flop. Unless it's been significantly re-raised, and you suspect someone has AA. The goal of raising with AK is that you want the original raiser to push all in and drive the others out, leaving you with a call for good pot odds. Obviously, all of this is determinant on how you feel the table is playing. Remember, 3 other people could all have A K offsuit!

[somnambulist 0]

I had a thought recently (a rare occurrence) Reraising with AK preflop in NL cash games playing dunces online. Not necessarily a good idea, or am I being overly cautious? With AKs you hit a flop just under 50% of the time if I remember correctly (including good draws). So say you reraised a guy and you both have deep stacks left to bet after the flop. You miss. He checks to you. You bet 3/4 pot, he calls, now what? Sure, if one of you is short-stacked it's easy. That's almost always the case in tournaments, which, together with the fact that people play tighter in tournaments, makes it a great moving in hand. But in cash games with reasonable stacks (talking 100-200BB plus)??Sure, if I know the other guy has very loose raising standards, I will reraise. Or if it's a cute pot building "double the blind" sort of raise.But what about all the times they have you dominated with AA/KK? How will know? I used to be trigger happy rerasing with AK, but not so sure anymore. Am I being too passive? I hate calling with it though - you are giving so much up.. even if an A or K flops you don't know exactly where you are. For that matter I used to think of QQ as a reraising hand not so sure anymore, only if I'm feeling really good (or one of you is short stacked or if the raiser has v.loose standards)I think reraising preflop is a really strong move, it really puts pressure on your opponents to hit a flop. Just that it's almost as if why not do it with any 2 cards based on other information, rather than AK because it's AK?

[somnambulist 0]

Btw remember there are 2 separate cases: one playing dunces, the other playing intelligent players. Oh and also someone once told me there are 2 schools of playing AK: one ramming and jamming preflop getting heads up or 3 way and the other as a drawing hand in a multiway pot (esp if they are suited). Is there any truth to this statement?

[Hardrocker 0]

AK (suited or not) is a dream hand and a nightmare hand. There are many ways to win with it, and many ways to lose with it.For the most part this is a "flop it or drop it" type of hand, although in NL you can take down a fair number of pots with a decent sized bet if you miss the flop. But what do you do if you bet and someone goes over the top of you?Slick plays the best from a late position against a limited number of oponents, preferably one.In my experience this hand wins and loses more tourneys for people than any other. You need a fair share of luck in a tourney including having a few coin flips go your way, and many of those coin flips involve big slick.

[Guest Anonymous]

 Hey folks, new to the forum.  I've played many home texas hold'em tourneys as well as online.  My record is very good and I guess I consider myself more of a keen player than a good one.  My biggest fallacy lies before the flop.  When I find myself holding, say, and A-K unsuited and I'm the 4th player to bet... the 3 players before me make a simple call or a BB raise.  Is this hand worthy of calling the raise or even re-raising?  For the sake of simplicity, we'll say everyone at the table is at least reasonably good.I appreciate any feedback.  This site kicks Ace!

You should definitely raise here to get rid of the limpers looking to see a cheap flop with their Q-Jos or 2-2 or suited connectors. The fewer people you are up against with this hand the better.You will notice that Big Slick loses a lot in the play games or micro-limit games when everyone basically calls with anything hoping to hit a flop (this drives me absolutely nuts).

[Smasharoo 0]

Raise the pot + 1BB for each other player in. This puts enough pressure on people limping in with speculative drawing hans while still letting hands you'd like to see a flop heads up with like AQ or QQ or whatever call and see a flop.Playing AK postflop is much more tricky. If you're willing to gambe, you can push here. The overlay from the limpers basically makes you 50/50 against QQ or a lower PP which is the only likely call you'll get. I imagine you'll just take a small pot down right there much of the time, which is fine too. Occasionally you'll get called by AA or KK, but that's just poker. You'll do your share of calling when you have them as well.

[Buckeye Bandit 0]

I would like to genuinely thank everyone who took the time to answer my question so elaborately. Your advice will not go unheeded in my future games. Like I stated before, I am new to this forum but by no means am I new to "the game". So I will try to offer some advice along the way as well. Thanks again for all the support, and best of luck in your tournaments. Merry Christmas to all!