Someone please tell me this is completely standard.

[Garth Kay]

It's read dependant situation, with limited information on your opponents it's a standard play.

Those limping in early position on a final table either have marginal holdings or quite possibly a monster, but you need some player history to be able to decide that.

Any pockets, except AA or KK, you are racing with. Any other hand such as AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KT you have dominated. The shoving range for any shortstack (> 6 BB) is pockets or any A, possible K high suited as well, all of which you are either racing with as a 50/50 or have clearly dominated.
Even QQ is still a race in this situation.

If in AK's situation you feel like you have the best hand then raise to isolate, it just sucks that he runs it into AA.

Would you like racing off 1/4 of your stack on the final table against a short stack opponent? Most of the time I will say yes.

AK was in a late enough position to make the isolation re raise, anyone holding TT or lower would probably fold (hard to say in micro stakes online tourney).

Brett do you want pokerstove AK against any random for me and figure out the equity? As well as pokerstove the above ranges I listed please?

New laptop yet to install anything poker related.

[Garth Kay]

People misuse aggressiveness. They hear the advice, "Play aggressive poker," and translate it to, "Bluff a lot." Aggressiveness is a lot more than bluffing. Too many players are aggressive by putting in a lot of money with their weak or mediocre hands, but slow-playing their other hands. They even get passive with big hands like A-K, wanting to "look at a flop." This approach is often a recipe for disaster. In this column, I'm going to explain why I think A-K is usually a reraising hand in no-limit hold'em.

Let's say the under-the-gun (UTG) player has raised to three times the big blind at a ninehanded no-limit hold'em table. Three players fold and you look down at A-K offsuit. You have 15 big blinds in front of you. What's your play? Lots of players tell me it's their "style" to just call there and take a peek at the flop. "And if I hit my hand," they say, "I'm going with it."
Here is some quick mathematics to show why I think this is bad strategy. First, note that A-K offsuit will miss the flop about two-thirds of the time. So, presumably, we're mucking to a bet on the flop almost two-thirds of the time. I'll allow for some bluff-raises with gutshot draws from us or for the occasional check-fold from the UTG player, and say that we will have to muck on the flop about 60 percent of the time. Next, let's assign the UTG player a typical UTG range of hands - pocket pairs of sevens or higher, A-Q, A-K, A-J suited.

If we hit the flop with our A-K, pocket pairs of 7-7 through Q-Q hate the flop (unless they flopped a set). They'll bet out a lot of the time - say, 75 percent of the time, anyway - trying to represent top pair, but they'll almost always stop putting money in the pot after we give them action.
So, let's do the math. When we cold-call with our A-K preflop, 60 percent of the time we lose just the three big blinds it cost us to call; 10 percent of the time or so, we hit the flop and our opponent check-folds. We win four and a half big blinds (our opponent's raise, plus the blinds who folded before the flop). The other 30 percent of the time is when our opponent bets and we've hit the flop.

If we look at the range of hands we've given him, and assume that he calls our raise only with a set, an overpair, or top pair, we'll see that on about 8 percent of flops, both of us end up all in. On those flops, we have 40 percent equity ("equity" is a term I covered in my last column). That's right - if our opponent actually wants to get all in with us, we're an underdog to win the pot. On 22 percent of flops, he bets out and folds to our raise. Let's say he chooses to bet out four and a half big blinds. In that case, we win nine big blinds on the hand (the four and a half from his bet, the three from his preflop raise, and the one and a half from the blinds that folded preflop).
Add up all of the big blinds we win or lose in every possible scenario, and you'll find out that cold-calling with A-K against that UTG player's raise wins about 0.4 big blinds per hand in the long run, which is not bad. But A-K is supposed to be a big hand. We're not supposed to be satisfied with winning less than a small blind with it.

Now let's compare flat-calling to the play I recommend - moving all in preflop. If we move in (jam), I'm going to assume that the UTG player mucks his sevens, eights, nines, A-J suited, and A-Q offsuit, but calls us with A-Q suited, A-K, and pairs of tens or higher. If we look at the money we win when he folds, compared to the money we lose when he calls, it turns out that in the long run, we earn 1.2 big blinds per hand by jamming with A-K - triple what we earned by calling.
The biggest reason it works out this way is that we got the UTG player to fold a whopping 45 percent of the time preflop when we moved in. If you don't believe that, what hands do you think he calls with that I have him folding? A-Q, nines, and eights? If he calls with all of those hands, jamming is still almost twice as good as calling. By moving all in, we give ourselves something called fold equity. We have two kinds of equity: our equity in the pot against our opponent's range of hands in a showdown, and our equity in picking up money for free by getting our opponent to fold before the showdown.

Let's go inside the numbers from the above calculations a bit. When we moved in preflop, the UTG player folded 45 percent of the time, and we won four and a half big blinds. The other 55 percent of the time, we lost a little - about one and a half big blinds. As you can see, this was easily offset by the times we picked up the four and a half big blinds without a fight. Also notice that when our opponent had tens, jacks, or queens, we won the hand about 43 percent of the time. If we had just called, we would've won the hand less than 30 percent of the time. This is because A-K wants to see all five cards. A-K offsuit has a 43 percent shot to beat two queens by the river, but only a 31 percent chance to be beating two queens after the flop. We need to give ourselves a chance to spike an ace on the turn or the river - and if we hit an ace at any point, we want to get paid. We won't get paid if our opponent has an underpair on an ace-high flop and we still have money in front of us. That's why it's important to get the money in before the flop.
You could nitpick the argument I just made. You might say, for example, that I ignored the rest of the players in the hand. But I would say that we want all of those players to fold, and the best way to get them out is to move all in. You also might say that some players will open from UTG with A-5 offsuit and play badly enough to lose all of their chips on an ace-high flop, or even a king-high flop. I would say that if the player is that bad, you're probably way ahead of him preflop and want to isolate right then and there.

Here is the central point: With hands that want to reach a showdown, like A-K preflop, or a straight-flush draw with two cards to come, it's important to get money into the pot as soon as possible. The more money there is in the pot, the harder it is to fold, and the more likely you are to get your showdown. So, don't be one of those passive A-K players. Learn to love the words, "I'm all in."

Matt Matros finished third in the 2004 World Poker Tour Championship, and cashed four other times in major tournaments last year. His book, The Making of a Poker Player.

[rcon]

That article is one I read early on, and has massively influenced my playing of AK, however I believe it has made me a little too aggressive in my use of "the shove".

I guess my question isn't so much how do we play this hand, as I think we all agree the best option is shove, but rather "do we play this hand?" Sure, we're a fav to win again all other aces, and we're slight underdog against pockets, but is that, combined with our fold equity, enough to risk our tournament life with an unmade hand?

My wondering of this is influenced by some nasty losses, most of them in bubble, or close to, situations of late. I'm starting to wonder if it is a case of me playing badly, or just some variance, but I'm sure sick of 2nd's and bubbles when going into hands in front. Early on, when it isn't for my tournament life, the re-raise makes a lot of sense, but there is no recovering in this situation if our move fails.

edit: LOL, as I posted and then view my post, who should be also browsing this forum? Bruce! I think we all know his answer here

[Garth Kay]

Do you honestly think folding AK here is the right play considering previous action?

Two limpers and one Short stack shove pretty much means you have the best of it.

You raise to isolate, you lose a race you lose 1/4 of your stack. With the blinds and antes in play it is the right move.

[rcon]

Do you honestly think folding AK here is the right play considering previous action?

Not at all, which is why my chips would be in the middle just as fast as I could find the "max" button, but I also know I'm often wrong

[Origami]

That article is one I read early on, and has massively influenced my playing of AK, however I believe it has made me a little too aggressive in my use of "the shove".

I guess my question isn't so much how do we play this hand, as I think we all agree the best option is shove, but rather "do we play this hand?" Sure, we're a fav to win again all other aces, and we're slight underdog against pockets, but is that, combined with our fold equity, enough to risk our tournament life with an unmade hand?

My wondering of this is influenced by some nasty losses, most of them in bubble, or close to, situations of late. I'm starting to wonder if it is a case of me playing badly, or just some variance, but I'm sure sick of 2nd's and bubbles when going into hands in front. Early on, when it isn't for my tournament life, the re-raise makes a lot of sense, but there is no recovering in this situation if our move fails.

edit: LOL, as I posted and then view my post, who should be also browsing this forum? Bruce! I think we all know his answer here

.,.,the new 'loose bruce ' has read the above with lnterest.may apply this if/when Im on the FT 'On Tour' in Sydney this Saturday.
Ask me sometime about my Ks. hiting on the
river.
Still learning to manage the variance.

[Bob B]

Well done Bruce another trip interstate, it's nice to see your on a bit of a roll M8.

Been doing pretty good myself lately played 4 tourney's made 4 FT's and 2 cash outs.

Good luck and let me know if you make the final table.

[Matty Norwood]

For you AK its not standard and here is the reason why.

Standard for you being in this situation as a 4:1 underdog would result in hitting runner runner flush or straight and smashing those aces. You dont get the term runs like god for going in with the worst of it and losing

[bennymacca]

For you AK its not standard and here is the reason why.

Standard for you being in this situation as a 4:1 underdog would result in hitting runner runner flush or straight and smashing those aces. You dont get the term runs like god for going in with the worst of it and losing

thats why he's writing about it, its quite rare for him to be in this position

[Des]

It's not standand.. should have been like this:

AA vs AK

flop KK3
turn 7
river A