Sick of Slick - Part V

A-K, even A-K suited, is a treacherous holding in deep-stack no-limit hold'em. It is here that big slick earns all of its pejorative nicknames ("Walking Back to Houston," after the Houston players who went broke in Dallas playing A-K against aces or kings; "Anna Kournikova," after the tennis pro who looks great but never wins anything important). Here is a typical situation: You have a stack of 10,000 in a tournament and the blinds are 50-100. You have 100 big blinds. When stacks are deep, it doesn't matter too much whether you're in a tournament or a cash game. Your job is to play winning poker. You find yourself under the gun with the A K, and make a normal raise to 300. Someone in middle position calls, the button calls, and the big blind hesitates, but finally folds.

Around two-thirds of the time, the flop will contain no aces or kings. You will probably make a continuation-bet of 700 or so into the pot of 1,050. If you win, fine; if you are called, most of the time you will check-fold on fourth street unless an ace or king comes. If you think that a caller is weak, you can always try the effect of firing a second bullet. Fearless players will even fire a third bullet on the river. I'm not a big fan of firing multiple bullets with nothing. My experience has been that after the first bullet misses, players fire the second one into their foot and the third one into their brain. Of course, if you're confident of your read or think your opponent can be scared, go ahead.

You're thinking, "Yeah, that's the bad case. What about the good case, when an ace or king hits on the flop?" Well, it certainly is better than the bad case, but it's a lot more dangerous. Let's say that you get a flop of the A 7 4. Again, you bet 700 into a 1,050 pot. Since you are betting a consistent amount, no one knows if the flop helped you or not. If everyone folds, you're happy to win the pot, but probably think you deserved more with top pair and top kicker. But what happens when they don't fold on the flop? There are two troubling cases: First, someone calls and then later raises, and second, someone raises immediately. (There are several other possibilities that I won't discuss here: checking the flop, hoping to raise; both opponents call; and one opponent calls on the flop and fourth street, leaving a lot of chips in play.)

Case No. 1: You bet the flop and get called by the button. The pot is now 2,450, and you have 9,000 left. The turn is a complete blank, the 2. Now you fire 2,000 into the pot and your opponent raises enough to put you all in. If he has a real hand, you are in real trouble. He might have a small set or two pair, perhaps the A 2. The pot is now up to 13,450 and you have "only" 7,000 left. You are getting almost 2-1, but if he has any of those real hands, you are either dead or close to it. For example, you are dead versus a set. Versus the A 2, you need a king, but not the K, a 4, or a 7-eight outs. If your best case is 8 outs, you are at best a 4.5-1 dog, and should fold. But what if he is being tricky? Maybe he has the A J, the 6 5, the 9 9; now you're a big favorite and should certainly call. There is no correct answer unless you can figure out what you opponent is up to (more on how to figure this out later).

Case No. 2: You bet the flop and get raised by the button. Even if he doesn't raise enough to put you all in, you certainly don't want to call here and then fold later with nearly half of your stack in the pot already. But you have the same dilemma as before. If he has a real hand, you should fold; if he is making a move or a probe raise, you have an easy call or even a move-in. (A probe raise would be made with a hand like A-Q or A-J. He wants to put you under pressure, get a free card on fourth street, and maybe the river, as well.) As in case No.1, there is no correct answer unless you can figure out what you opponent is up to.

How can you figure out what your opponent is up to? The most obvious thing is to know your opponent. If he flopped two pair or a set, would he raise the flop or wait for fourth street to raise. If you know he'd wait, the flop raise is more likely to be a semibluff with a flush draw or a probe with a worse ace. There are thousands of tells that show strength or weakness. Is he manifesting one or, better yet, several of them? I don't like to discuss the things I usually rely on, because some cunning reader will use them against me, but there are a lot of books and sections of books that discuss them. (The Caro and the Navarro-Hellmuth books on tells are excellent.)

There is another important factor in making your decision, which is not mentioned as frequently. That is your table image. Do your opponents perceive you as loose, normal, or tight? Strangely enough, you should lean toward calling if they think you are loose or tight, but fold if they think you are of average tightness. The explanation for this is that if you are perceived as loose, they will think you are less likely to have a real hand. Therefore, they may be raising with A-Q for value, or with any kind of bluff or semibluff hand, hoping you are playing trash again and will be forced to fold. If they think you're really tight, they might be betting with the expectation that you'll fold, fearing that they really have a big hand. Some players with nines might try to push you off a bigger pair or a mediocre ace. If they think you are more middle-of-the-road, they will suspect A-K, and will expect that you will play it to the river no matter what they do. Thus, their raise indicates a real hand and you should fold.

As I write this series, I have found another way to be "sick of slick." I'm getting sick of writing about it. I will do one final column summarzing the discussion of A-K, and then move on to more pleasant topics.

Steve "Zee" Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of it's pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A - Nice Guy Eddie's on Houston and Doc Holliday's on 9th Street - in New York City.