How To Play Ace-King
In my experience, perhaps the most difficult hand to play in tournaments is Ace-King. I’m no where near an expert, but I feel I’ve made enough mistakes with this hand to have a clearer picture of how to play it optimally. Earlier in my poker career, I could have saved myself thousands of dollars in tournament equity simply by understanding what I do now about playing Ace-King.
How you play Ace-King depends a great deal on the size of your stack. As is always the case in a poker tournament, there are literally dozens of variables that need weighed in determining how to play a hand. So keep in mind that the advice in this article is just a general guideline, not a hard-and-fast rulebook.
~40 Big Blinds
When you have this many big blinds in a tournament, for all intents and purposes, you’re deep stacked. It is important to note that one should always be aware of the “effective big blinds”. Simply put, if you have 100 big blinds, and your opponent has 20 big blinds, you might as well have 20 big blinds. Bear that in mind while reading this article.
With a deep stack and Ace-King, one of the biggest mistakes players make is playing the hand too fast before the flop. It is generally not good to four-bet in this situation (meaning re-re-raise all-in). Many players expose themselves to either doing this, or calling off their stack while still very deep by re-raising with Ace-King.
For example, let’s say the blinds are 50/100 and all relevant players have 6,000 chips. You raise to 300 in early-position, and an otherwise sane player re-raises you to 900. If this player is anything close to average, chances are he has a very strong hand here. You could re-re-raise him to 2,700 (or whatever), but you might as well just be moving all-in, because that’s what is going to happen if he doesn’t fold. In situations like this, it’s wise to keep in mind that really all you have is ace-high. Your hand only dominates a smaller ace. Many players won’t put in a huge stack before the flop with a smaller ace. This means that you’ll still need to make a pair in order to win the pot. With a deep stack, there’s nothing wrong with slowing down and making a pair before really pushing the chips around strong.
~25 Big Blinds
At this stage, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to look for situations to get your stack in before the flop with Ace-King. A big indicator of whether or not it’s a good situation to do so is by the action at the table. If you raise in middle position, someone re-raises all-in, and one of the blinds calls that all-in, you might want to weigh a fold. Generally when someone cold calls someone else’s re-raise all-in, they have a very strong hand. With this stack, you still have enough chips to make a fold if it is warranted.
If someone raises in front of you, don’t be afraid to re-raise and hope to call a shove. At this stage, you are absolutely never going to re-raise only to fold, so don’t over-think anything. In the event that you raise and someone just smooth calls, one thing I like to do, if I am out of position, is to check the flop if I hit a pair. This will induce aggressive players to stab at the pot, letting you win more when you raise all-in.
~15 Big Blinds (or less)
I don’t think the word “shove” in and of itself constitutes a complete paragraph, so I’ll stretch it out into a sentence and hope that suffices.