For ABC Poker Players. Why r you raising AX Pre in a Cashgame?

[MaxBLN]

Or do you follow blind the old tradition? Or did you really thought about the Question?

First of all, please be patient with me. english is not my mothertongue. but i try to make myself understandable as good i can

Because of my Strategy to minimize the Risk and maximize the Profit it makes much more sence for me to just limp these Kind of Hands from a early Position.

lets have a look @the mathematic edge:
you are dominating any ace or king kombination in a relation from 4 to 1.
you are a huge underdog against kings, aces (and queens, with aq),
and you have a coinflip against a pair.
an you are only a slight favorite against all other combinations (round a bit 6to4).

i am not a gambling man. if i put my chips in the middle then for 2 reasons
reason 1) i believe i have the best hand or a good chance to win the showdown
reason 2) i think i can outplay/bluff my opponent

AK and AQ are just a Drawing Hands. You only make a Pair in 1 of 3 Times.
Because of my Strategy to minimize the Risk and maximize the Profit it makes much more sence for me to just limp these Kind of Hands in a early Position (against common semi-tight or tight a. players).

reason 1)
you probably scare off tighter player with your preflop raise, especally these hands which you are dominating so much (kt,at,qj and even kq).
if you do not raise preflop, you will probably get a lot of bigblinds if he aj,or kq hits the board, because they do not expect such a strong hand.

reason 2)
if you are playing against callingstations, you and your continuationbet will get called anyway. and if you cannot connect your hand with the board, you are playing a big pot in wich you are in trouble.

reason 3) (you miss the flop in 2 of 3 times)
you do not have to make a continuation bet out of position.
if you raise a lot of hands preflop and make a continuationbet @flop all the time, you will get floatet from experienced players (because its very obviously that you cannot hold aces and kings all the time).

reason 4)
what will you do if you raise pre and get a reraise from a solid tag?
a raise will usally come from ak, aq, qq, jj, kk, aa (aj, kq, 99) and the reraise range is a little bit shorter... so
what will you do then? push? and prey he hold just qq and can fold it?
call and invest (instead of 4 bbs with the limp/raise call) round a bit 12 big blinds with a drawing hand (your chance to hit are probably smaller then you think, because he could also held 1 or 2 of your outs)?

and if a loose aggressive player raise then, you can easily go over the top which is ev+.

keep in mind, it´s a must raise - from late position(which i prefere to raise even j8 and something like that), against nits or in a tournament ... no question. but against common tags / atms my strategy seems to be ev+ (says pokertracker :-).
i could give you a few more reasons for that, but i do not have the time right now for it.

[The 6th Wilbury]

Out of curiosity, with which hands do you recommend raising from under the gun or other early-position seats? Or do you prefer to limp with ALL hands in that spot, so that you can disguise the times you have a big pair?

I'll let others chime in on this, but the reason for raising with AK -- even in early position -- is for value. You have a strong hand, so get some value in the pot while you can. If you limp, and someone limps behind with a medium pair, then you flop your ace or king, you might not get much more value. So get the value in preflop.

Also, if you are willing to raise with unpaired hands in early position, then it helps disguise the times you have a big pair in the same situation. If you ONLY raise with the big pairs from up top, your opponents might simply throw away their smaller pairs unless they're looking to set-mine against you.

Again, I'll let others get into this. I have to leave for a meeting.

[JohnLance]

Maxbln,
I think that you have made a very well thought out post. I think you have some good ideas, That being said, passive poker isn't winning poker. Situationally, limping AK + AQ can be the exception and not the norm.

[gonzo69]

I don't mind limping w/ AK or AQ if I'm up against aggressive players that I think will raise, then you can have some fun and let them try and figure it out.

[Pendulous Threads]

Limping your AK, AQ type hands full ring leads to more problems then positives. Your logic is correct. You win a bigger pot when an AJ, A10 doesnt see it coming. But the logic you are not applying is that this is a small portion of what someone will gamble with. In unraised multi-way pots, If you hit your hand you're not winning a big pot, but winning a small one when the field cant beat the A or K on board and they simply fold. You will be losing a large one though, because generally an astute player isn't giving action if they cant beat the A or K.

The main reason however is like paying for an advertisement in a popular magazine. You're spending some money to sell your big hands later. If you never raise from EP unless you have QQ, KK, or AA you are going to have many stressful sessions of poker. If you raise an opponent goes go "well he has a big pair" he has an advantage. But if you raise and an opponent can say "man sometimes he's got it, sometimes he doesn't" you have the advantage.

We are also raising these hands because often we win the pots without having to improve our hand. We simply make a c-bet and take down a majority of our pots this way.

Now opinions will vary on the following. But from LP with a raise and a call I highly lean towards your method. See a flop from position. Just remember it depends. As much as some make it look like, there is no system. It just depends. Generally, most players are bad and that is why we have fallback strategies. Some games are so bad it might be correct to just ship it for 70 bb with a hand because you will get called by the suckers trying to look good enough to turn a profit.

[Bthoven]

What hands are you raising with from EP if AK isn't one of them?

If you are uber tight and don't take risks you are going to be very predictable and you will get a lot less action when you do play a hand. Your logic is flawed. You don't raise pre flop because everyone is so tight they will fold all the hands you dominate but yet they are all so loose that if you did raise they would all call your continuation bet on the flop.

I like the fact that you seem to have put a lot of thought into this, but I think some of your reasoning is off. Personally if I am first in I am almost always raising. If you are going to limp with small to medium pocket pairs early, then I would say limp a bit with AK but over all it is clearly more profitable to raise with AK when first in regardless of position. Sure you will win some pots preflop, you will win some with a c-bet on the flop, but the main reason you are raising with AK is because you likely have the best hand and you want to make the pots you win bigger. Not sure what games you are playing, but in my experience people call with plenty of hands AK crushes so there is lots of value in raising. If that is not the case in your games, I would again say that it is because you are playing so tight and straight forward that you are telegraphing your big hands.

[Mattlanta]

I like this post. I have to say in live cash games where you get 4-6 callers on every pf raise i sometimes take this line. It all depends on the table... but one point i want to bring up is board texture. There are so many board textures that c-bets work well on... big little little, paired boards ect... that i feel that you could be giving up value because you cant exploit the situations when it is hard for your opponent to have a hand when you are holding ak, aq.

good post.

[MaxBLN]

hi everyone :-)

Originally Posted by The 6th Wilbury

Out of curiosity, with which hands do you recommend raising from under the gun or other early-position seats? Or do you prefer to limp with ALL hands in that spot, so that you can disguise the times you have a big pair?

i cannot easily answere that question.
it depends on my stack and the players behind me, my image and the gametype(tournament or cashgame).
i usally raise every pair from tt+ on.
i also raise j9 utg for example, if there are only 7 players left and i am the chipleader @bubble phase and playing against nits.
i also raise aq and ak from time to time, if i am playing with a deep stack.
in a tournament (exept in the mega-deepstacke ones) i am playing straight forward by raising my ak,aq ...

Originally Posted by The 6th Wilbury

Also, if you are willing to raise with unpaired hands in early position, then it helps disguise the times you have a big pair in the same situation. If you ONLY raise with the big pairs from up top, your opponents might simply throw away their smaller pairs unless they're looking to set-mine against you.

i know, i know. as i said, my preflopraise (and reraise) -range depends on my image and the playingstile of my opponents.
if i sure that my opponents think i am playing very tight, i raise and 3 bets with marginal hands (@position / if i am sure that my opponents is aware of that and can throw away his hand).
if i am playing online, i usally searching for a table with many loose aggressive players, so i get paid off.
and at my local casino (2.5/5 euros in germany) there are a lot of players, who are not aware of that. sometimes i get 4 callers even if i didnt raise / play a single hand for the last hour.

That being said, passive poker isn't winning poker.

just because i did not raise so much hands from early position, it does not mean that i am playing passiv^^

[TomRichards]

play tight agressive to succeed haha!

[TheDarkDestroyer]

This advice is for 9-10 handed games, not short handed.

I'd muck AQ in 1st position 9 handed. Against bad players I'd always open raise AK. Against experts, believe it or not, folding AK in 1st handed in a 9 or 10 handed game is far from horrible.(Mostly still open raise.) Just think there are 9 or 10 random hands behind you, super low equity of taking out the blinds, high chance of being reraised where youll probally fold, good chance of people just calling with position and you being out play on the later streets, you can even be moved off top pair. Limping in 1st with AK is very weak, you dont want lots of people to see the flop, hitting top pair, 2 pair is not so good, its a reverse implied odds hand. Limp reraising, if u get reraised is okay with a short stack, deep, very dangerous. Limping in 1st reraising is better in tournaments, I still dont like it, Id just open raise. That's pretty much all the advice that can possibly be given for AK, AQ, in 1st position 9 or 10 handed, and no one alive can really tell you any better.