Common question: how to play an AK?

Yes, AK is just a hand, and yes, aggression (at least when we're preflop) is pretty much mandatory when we have this hand. But there's still a lot to think about when it comes to AK. The great strength of this hand comes from its great flexibility and sensitivity to the playing conditions. Every hand is sensitive to the conditions at the time it arises, but many beginning players will find more excuses to vary the way they play AK than they would to play small pairs.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning how to play an AK:

1: You will usually raise/re-raise with AK, but how big will this raise be?

The answer to this question is: you will have to look at the type of opponent you are playing against, the stack sizes, and how much stack your opponent will have left after your raise is called.

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2: Sometimes you don't want to re-raise (3-BET)

Although AK is a very strong hand, there are times when a call is much better than a fold. There are basically two situations in which this occurs.

Sometimes, our opponent's opening range is so strong that our AK is not good enough to re-raise for value (usually this situation occurs against very tough players opening from early position). In the second situation, our opponent's opening range is not very strong, but contains a lot of aces and kings that we are dominating with AK. If almost all of these hands will fold to our re-raise, then sometimes it is better to just call and let our hand have the natural advantage against our opponent's range. In this situation a re-raise is profitable, but seeing a flop against a dominated range can be even better.

3: In some circumstances, a limp/re-raise is a possibility.

In some games, there are players who will raise a limper almost 100% of the time. This tendency, coupled with the likelihood that at least one opponent will have a considerably strong hand, means that we have the opportunity to apply this move at some types of tables. This type of situation does not always occur, and even so, it is still much more advisable to play AK aggressively by opening with a raise, but the limp/re-raise remains as an extra option.

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Summary

As you can see, none of the tips show extraordinary plays with AK. Generally the correct way is to play the hand aggressively, but the key point is, we must think about these four questions below:

Who can raise?

What are your opponents' raising and raise/call ranges?

What are the stacks of all the players?

How do your opponents on the left behave or tend to get involved in multi-way pots?

Taking all these questions into consideration, if you have AK or any other hand, you will know whether you should play the hand in a standard (common) way or if you can think of some more advanced move.

Article translated and adapted from: A Planning Exercise: What if I Get Ace-King?