But I’ve had a lot of other things going on, and poker still, since Black Friday and even though I’m not American, lost some attraction for me. Being on the west coast of Canada I lost most of the volume of fish that played during my free time.

Just after the new year (Happy New Year) I decided to try another project. Zoom is so convenient for me, but so frustrating because of the lack of quality reads and because I tilt easily. I’ve tried numerous Zoom projects, the most recent being some low level PLO, but I haven’t tried 6 max. So that’s what I’m doing.

My results to date, in the handy dandy HEM graph export format. Sorry it’s oversized, but if you click on it you can view it, and shrunk to fit it’s hard to read.

Mind you, the details are irrelevant. Even the results are statistically irrelevant, but I have to be happy that I pulled out of the dive that always follows the opening upswing.

I often start a session too wide and I try to pull back. Overall I’m 29/23, steal of 59, which is fine, I think. Two stats I’m working on are my 3 bet of 3.4 and cbet of 82.6. But at $10NL too many fish flat the 3bets or spazz and shove their short stacks over top. And because I steal so wide I tend to cbet too often because my range is so weak. In other words, I miss the flop so badly when called that I cbet out of desperation. I need to give up the flop more often since I’m only getting folds 52% of the time and bet the turn.

Another 10-20,000 more hands and if I still feel okay with my game and tilt management I’ll move up to $25NL

But recently I took on a challenge. I was given a $25 stake to play 0.01/0.02 Zoom PLO. I’ve only been learning PLO and had dabbled at the 0.05/0.10 cash tables and Zoom, but playing with a 2.5 X bankroll at the $10 tables seemed silly so I tried to do it at the $2 tables.

Over a period of 4.5 months I played one instance of Zoom, trying to figure out how to beat the game. I was doing so, but just barely.

PLO is swingier than NLHE and I suffer from Zoom tilt, a special form of tilt that happens because the fast fold option somehow makes me impatient and prone to spewing off.

But I got impatient and bored with trying to accomplish the goal of doubling up the $25 stake so that I could return it, so one day, while watching a movie (I think it was Prometheus) I opened up 4 instances of Zoom rather than the one. And I finished the stake in a day.

Since then I’ve been continuing to play, to see if it’s maintainable, to see if I actually discovered something about Zoom and my play.

This chart represents about another two weeks of experimenting with 4 instances, and includes the initial winning that took me over the $25 total that was my target for the staking agreement. The win rate has come down, but it’s still ridiculously high at 36.8 bb/100 and I’ve doubled up again in about half as many hands as the previous 4.5 months.

6,800 hands is still a small sample but the difference in winnings is significant. PFR has dropped one percent, VPIP has dropped three so I’m throwing away a few more bad hands because I’m playing 4 tables, and post flop aggression is higher, which makes sense if I’m the pre flop raiser in a greater percentage of my hands. Plus I’ve started betting out into limped pots when I’m in the BB and I have something rather than check/calling.

The thing about Zoom tilt is that it’s mitigated by starting something new. Every time I change levels, change games, stay away for a long time, I run better because I’m not tilted. Conversely, the more I play, the longer the session, the more days in a week that I play, the more inclined I am to spew. That’s why I’ve waited almost 7,000 hands to compare, so ideally I should continue to play at least until the somewhat arbitrary number of 10,000 hands, or until I triple the stake to $75 or something.

On the other hand, I’d like to take this to 0.05/0.10 PLO Zoom to see if I can do something similar, where the play should improve and I can actually get my post-Black Friday bankroll moving again.

Categorized plays; Postflop

Fit or Fold; Stats: low postflop aggression and bet frequency

• GOOD: easy decision making
• GOOD: minimizing risks
• probably need to see lots of flops and to call down with underpairs and 2nd or even 3rd pair on flop
• may need to be a chaser as well, chasing with draws and with overcards
• BAD: give up on lots of best hands if calling preflop raises and folding
• SO SO: may be appropriate playing against maniacs
• BAD: cannot be a long term winner against the general population of poker players using this as your primary postflop strategy

Slowplay trips, straight, flush, two pair, even TP

• GOOD: set can be paid off by TP or overpair
• GOOD: can be paid off by aggressive player
• BAD: risk being outdrawn or counterfeited, especially bottom two pair, but often also flush draws or straight draws out draw trips/sets, or two pair/trips/set will draw a full house against made straights/flushes (especially in Omaha!)
• BAD: usually lose some potential value of the hand by slowplaying

Bet/overbet/bluff river, scare card, or just frequently; Stats: high postflop aggression

• at low levels some players constantly limp in late position and bet any flop
• others types will put out large bets and often
• GOOD: put pressure on marginal hands
• GOOD: take down lots of small pots
• GOOD: get paid off with big hands if you remember to use the same bet style
• BAD: lose big if you bet big and can’t give up to aggression
• BAD: often too predictable with bets making it easy to pick off, ie. someone who c-bets every hand, or bets every flop, or has already overbet the river twice or shoved flop many times

Raise preflop, bet the flop (continuation bet); Stats: high c-bet %

• GOOD: take advantage of strength represented preflop, get many folds
• GOOD: if done regularly, will help to get paid off when you have a big hand
• BAD: may end up paying off calling stations when you miss the board
• BAD: maybe check-raised or floated, sometimes with nothing

Float; call a preflop raise, call a flop bet, bet the turn

• RISKY: can be costly as you’ve invested ~10 bbs just to get to the turn
• BAD: won’t work against players with high showdown rates (ie players who don’t fold)

Call preflop raise, call flop bet; Stats: high call preflop, possibly high showdown rate

• with overs, draws, underpairs, or combination
• some players seem to do this just to see if the preflop raiser is “serious”. They may bet the river with nothing.
  
• GOOD: if you have showdown value it might be worthwhile trying to get to showdown cheaply

Call preflop raise out of position, bet out (donk) the flop, Stats: may have high post flop aggression

• could be middle pair, or pocket pair lower than the high card, or just testing a dry flop
• betting series is often donk small, donk small, bet pot, or donk small, bet bigger. Small flop donk is often a test of some kind
  
• sometimes used as a cheaper alternative to check-raising the flop
  
• GOOD: may be able to take the pot down without a struggle
• GOOD: can start to build the pot, eg flopped set against players who don’t always continuation bet, or if there is more than one player so the preflop raiser may not continuation bet
  

Chase flushes/straights; Stats: may have high VPIP, low postflop aggression

• can be paid off when hit, but not always possible to extract value
• BAD: more difficult to extract value out of position
• works better at lowest levels; the higher the level the less likely to be paid off when you fill

Bet/raise draws, especially in combination with overs or pairs; Stats: high postflop aggression

• GOOD: take advantage of fold equity
• GOOD: take advantage of pot equity early before pot equity shrinks if the turn card misses
• GOOD: protect against scare cards shutting down the action
• BAD: difficult situation if out of position and called the turn misses, pot equity has decreased

This is a collection of poker plays, separated into preflop plays and postflop plays. It’s a different way of analysing players according to what actions they have in their playbook. Rather than limiting myself to the four general styles and using the maniac, rock, calling station labels or the loose versus tight and aggressive versus passive grid I wanted to just list common plays so that I might apply them to individuals that I run across.

It’s not comprehensive and the thinking level is not particularly advanced. The list is designed to consider micro level no-limit holdem players, from 0.01/0.02 tables up to 0.25/0.50 and tournaments up to $10 + 1 buy-in levels. I’m looking for things that players at these levels will do consistently and in most cases a number of times within say 50 hands or so. Most of these things you could define and note within a few orbits at a table.

These characteristics are not mutually exclusive. A loose-passive player may limp AA from early position, but a tight player may also do so. But a frequent limper is going to be more often the type of player to donk postflop whereas the tight player rarely gets involved postflop, and when he does he’s usually the one raising. Or, a player who normally bets postflop may also slowplay any good hand (actually this is pretty common). For most players you can probably apply two or three characteristics from the preflop list and two or three from the postflop list and then you pretty much have their game figured out.

Like most players that have played for a while I’ve at least tried most of these plays or styles at one time or another. Good players will keep as many in their arsenal as they find useful. But most players have a limited understanding and language and will use their favorites or the ones that they are most comfortable with over and over again. That’s the advantage of keeping on the lookout. That’s what makes beginners exploitable.

I’ve tried to come up with a couple of advantages for each, and a couple of disadvantages or risks with each. There is no attempt to explain how to make these plays; this is written for the purpose of recognizing the plays. I haven’t gone into details about how or how not or when or when not to use them, though in a few instances where I rarely use the play I’ve theorized what the play means.

Categorized plays; Preflop

Limp, and often; Stats: High VPIP, low PFR

• GOOD: can flop big hands with connectors/suited cards, such as trips/two pair/flushes
• SO SO: cheap way to see lots of flops and play lots of hands
• BAD: can lose lots of blinds being raised off hands
• BAD: will flop lots of marginal hands that can be tough to play multiway

Limp strong but not premium hands; AQ/KQ/AJ/AT; Stats: low PFR or big gap between VPIP and PFR

• GOOD: can flop TPTK and be a surprise winner against blinds or other limpers, beating second best hands
• SO SO: can fold cheaply when missed flop
• BAD: will miss most flops and may be bet off the best hand (even Ace-high may be the best hand)
• BAD: miss value by not building the pot preflop when ahead or by limiting the competition
• BAD: can be costly if you don’t have the nuts because you think that you have underrepresented the hand and you can overvalue it postflop

Limp big hands; either trapping with AA/KK or afraid to raise with AK/QQ/JJ (especially if multiway low level)

• GOOD: can win big against top pair on the flop
• GOOD: can 3 bet/shove if raised preflop
• BAD: miss value by not increasing the pot preflop
• BAD: gives off big reverse implied odds to unexpected flopped two pair/set

Open limp from mid/late; Stats: High VPIP, low PFR, more common the lower the buy in level

• sometimes combined with high postflop bet frequency, postflop bets are often tiny amounts designed to take down pots that no one has any interest in, or overbets of the pot to make sure that no one will call
• occasionally done with the intention of trapping with big hands. These players are desperate to get value for their big hands and because there are only a few players behind them they want to make sure someone plays by open limping. I see this done with big hands more often in tournaments when the table is short.

Tight, play very few hands; Stats: low VPIP

• GOOD: stay out of trouble with more difficult hands
• GOOD: get lots of respect when you do play
• BAD: lose a lot of blinds to more aggressive players
• BAD: never flop disguised hands
• BAD: gives off reverse implied odds if opponents read the tightness and we can’t fold to aggression/trapping

Raise lots of hands; Stats: high PFR

• GOOD: takes down lots of small pots
• GOOD: gives aggression lead post flop
• GOOD: if done with a wide range can flop disguised hands
• BAD: against good players they will increase the amount of reraising and trapping that they will employ against you
• BAD: gives off reverse implied odds if you can’t fold. I’ve seen a lot of players tilt when opponents start playing back against their aggressive style
• BAD: may have to play big pots out of position with marginal hands if a lot of raising is done from early positions

Raise/steal from late position/SB; Stats: high steal percentage, much higher PFR in late position than early, similar to raising most hands, but might not be as predictable

• GOOD: if done from late position gets isolation and position
• GOOD: disguises hand range. You could have 96 and flop two pair, or hold AA and they think that because you steal often you have something weaker
• SO SO: eventually players will get tired of your steals and will start playing back against you so you have to have a plan for adjusting

Lack of positional awareness; Stats: usually high VPIP and/or PFR combined with even rates from all positions

• GOOD: disguises hand strength
• SO SO: get to see lots of flops
• BAD: get trapped playing weak hands out of position

If I grab 2,000 or 10,000 or 40,000 cash table poker hands the pattern is pretty consistent; once I deduct the big wins from obvious bad players I’m near breakeven, or at least my all in EV will be near breakeven. Sure, there will still be hands like set over set, or combo draw that comes in or that gets avoided against aggressive players; other hands that make up big pots too, but it feels as if I’m only winning because of the bad players. And that can be disheartening.

Am I really making much when I successfully float a TAG and take away the pot with QTs that missed the board as much as his hand likely missed the board? Or when I call two barrels with an underpair on a board with a single broadway card on the flop against an expected aggressive player? Or with King high against a blind stealer? Over time these kinds of things add up to a huge amount, but to me this is just staying alive financially, helping me to pay the rake and giving me training and hands to ponder over. The winnings seem to come from treading water against the decent players while waiting for the bad players to pay off.

Of course that’s not entirely true because I also lose some money to bad players when they draw out on me or the times that I fold to maniacs, and I win a lot of small pots when I raise preflop and they call and then fold on the flop. And if I only deduct the big winning hands against the bad players then I still have the small winning hands as well as all the losing hands in the results. But it can certainly feel that way; as if I’m not that good, that the only reason that I’m a winning players is because of the bad players paying me off. In other words I’m not really a “winning player”, I’m just “not a bad player”.

If there are only two type of categories, “bad” versus “not bad”, or “losing” versus “winning”, then it’s fine to be “not bad” and “winning”. But that’s contrary to the competitive, aggressive, best-of-the-best attitude that lies within the personality of most poker players, both the winners and the losers (double-or-nothing players aside?).

We like to think of ourselves as good, or at least better than most. We don’t want to just label ourselves as better than the worst. But maybe better than most of the worst is all it takes to be a winner.

The following hand came up recently and I thought that it makes a really good source for covering a variety of aspects about playing microstakes poker. I’m going to pull out a wide range of related tangents and try to look at it from a variety of perspectives.

First off, $200 is not enough to be playing $25 tables. That’s only 8 buyins, and if my target is $500 to play $50 that will only be 10 buyins. The standard bankroll requirement is 20-30 buyins, so $500-$750 for $25 and $1,000 to $1,500 for $50 tables. The qualifying factors here are that

1. I have money on other sites, so this is not all my online bankroll,
2. I have money that I’ve cashed out because I’d rather have it in my bank rather than in the poker site’s bank. This money has not been spent on vacations or groceries and so I do still consider it to be part of my poker bankroll, and,
3. I’ve played $25, as well as $10, $50 and $100, on PokerStars before.

Next factor; I’m on the button in this hand. My steal percentage from this position is around 45%, which means that when it’s folded to me on the button, I raise 45% of the time. That’s a bit of a surprise; I thought it to be closer to 33%. Regardless, I open raise a lot of hands from the button unopened. Reasons for this?

1. There are only three hands left; myself and the two blinds, so the relative value of the better-than-average hands goes up and there is a smaller chance that someone holds a good hand
2. I will have position postflop on either or both players in the blinds if they call. They should know this, and they should only play with hands that can stand to be played out of postion postflop. Because I will have position later and because I may be representing a good hand, often the blinds will just fold preflop.
3. Postflop if they call I can continuation bet most flops and get folds frequently.
4. Having position postflop makes it easier for me to control the size of the pot

Next factor; information about the players in the blinds.

1. They are both less than full stacked, indicating that they are not strong players.
2. The SB’s (Small Blind) PFR (PreFlop Raise percentage) is 2 and BB’s PFR is 12, so it’s not likely that they will re-raise me unless they have a very good hand. Neither have re-raised preflop yet, but I don’t have a lot of hands on either player.

Reasons not to play or to raise;

1. SB is very short. If he re-raises, I can’t just call unless I’m trying to trap him with a big hand. And sometimes when players get short stacked they get spazzy. However, I don’t know whether he has drifted to short or started short, and I don’t see indications of him being hyper-aggressive.
2. BB has a higher PFR so he’s not as passive as the SB. He also has a steal percentage of 44 which indicates that he understands the value of stealing. He hasn’t re-raised yet, but again I don’t have a lot of hands on either player.
3. BB has a post-flop aggression frequency of 38% and an aggression rate of 1.0, meaning that he can be aggressive postflop and doesn’t call often.
4. Both players have low fold to continuation bet frequencies of 50%.

Finally, my cards, J7

1. They can (barely) make a straight
2. They are suited
3. The J is high enough that if I pair it, depending on the board and the opponent, I may be comfortable betting more than one street for value

Now here’s one of the most dangerous things about using a hand like this as an example. A less experienced player will see what I’ve just written and forget the earlier analysis and the weakness of the hand that I’m going to point out. Then they’ll try playing it and hands like it in all sorts of situations; calling raises in the blinds with it, open raising it from middle position, and other bad uses. This is not a hand that I will play in pretty much any other cash game situation (tournaments, with the bubbles and ultra-short stacks can be a different matter).

The weaknesses of this hand;

1. The gap is too far so they will only very rarely make a straight
2. The top card is not an Ace so I can be dominated by a better flush
3. If I pair the Jack the seven is almost useless as a kicker since if my opponent has a Jack he almost certainly has a better kicker

The weaknesses of this hand far outweigh the strengths, but, since I am on the button and will have position and the blinds are not aggressive, it’s a hand that I will open raise. There’s a good chance that I will take the blinds, and if not, I have position and a hand that may catch something.

Note that I am not considering calling. By calling I would have no chance of taking down the pot preflop and I will have no initiative in the hand postflop. The only time I would consider just calling from the button would be if I had a big hand and the blinds were aggressive. In that situation I’m trying to trap by calling and expecting to be raised. Or, behind multiple callers who I don’t expect to fold and I hold a small pair or suited connectors. A suited J7 is not useful in any of those categories.

So my plan is to raise and fold to a reraise, then if called to continuation bet most but not all flops.

Not the best flop, but one that hits my range as the preflop raiser better than it hits his range as a preflop caller from the blinds. In other words with the Ace and King in the flop it makes more sense that the preflop raiser (me) holds an Ace or King than the caller. Plus I have a flush draw so by betting,

1. I have a chance to take the pot down on the flop,
2. If called, I have the third nut flush draw

Unfortunately if he holds an Ace or King or has a flush draw himself, he’s likely not folding. Let’s go back to the player information again to see what applies now.

1. He’s short –> not likely good
2. He doesn’t fold a lot to continuation bets
3. His key preflop stats are 19/17 which indicate tight-aggressive so he doesn’t call preflop often
4. His postflop aggression rate is 1.0 meaning he bets as often as he calls postflop, and his frequency is 38% which is fairly aggressive.
5. Not a lot of hands, so this information is only an indication of how he actually plays.

Does he call preflop from the blind with a hand that has a flush draw? The most likely type of player to play any suited cards are the loose-paassive types that like to see flops and chase their flushes, so I think a flush by this player is not too likely. Against stronger competition the fact that the Ace of the flush is on the board and can’t be in his hand makes a flush draw less likely, but that’s not necessarily the case at $25nl. Does he call preflop with a hand that has an Ace or King? Possibly. I’ve seen players at this level who seem to have TAG stats like 19/17 but play AK/AQ/KQ weakly when someone else has raised, even in a situation like this when I’m on the button and I steal often. Again it’s more likely that a loose player will have called with any Ace or possibly a King than a TAG.

He didn’t bet out, so I decide to bet. If called, I’m probably done with the hand unless I hit the flush.

So I bet the flop and he calls. A Jack comes, giving me a pair and he checks again.

Now that I have a pair some players might automatically bet. But why? If he has an Ace or King, he’s probably still going to call and by betting I’m going to lose a bigger pot. Unless he’s calling with a flush draw (which we said is not that likely) or an underpair like TT/99 that didn’t believe that I have an Ace or King then we’re building a pot which we’re likely to lose and he’s not that likely to fold to a bet here. Basically I have a bluff catcher if he is chasing a straight or flush and it misses, so I check behind.

Another mode of thinking here is that I’ve gained outs to beat an Ace if that’s what he holds (another Jack or a seven will help me) and I still have the flush outs so I should bet again to keep building the pot for the times that I fill on the river, plus I likely have some fold equity if I bet the turn if he holds a King and decides to give up. I think that I’m more likely to do this against a player that I have more respect for, someone that I know is a good player and will be reluctant to pay me off if I get frisky on the river. Because he started the hand short stacked I assume that he’s not a good player until I have evidence otherwise.

Now I’ve made the 3rd nut flush and he’s bet into me. It’s possible that he has the flush, but it’s also possible that he as TT/99 that thinks that I’m full of air and will fold if he bets, or, that he has an Ace and wants to get some value from me if I have a King. There aren’t many hands that beat me and there are a lot of Ace hands that don’t expect me to have a flush that will call a raise out of curiosity or hoping that I have a worse Ace hand. A straight is unlikely holding on my part as I should have bet that on the turn and possibly unlikely for him given that he would have check/called the flop with a gutshot. Possible, but less likely that some kind of Ace or King.

It’s also quite possible that he’s mostly bluffing with an underpair or something that saw me continuation bet the flop and then check the turn. He has some postflop aggression and by checking the turn I’ve opened up his range to bet the river. In other words because I bet the flop and checked the turn and he’s somewhat aggressive, he will bet the river with a wider range of hands. Most of the time he will fold those bluffs to a raise though, so by raising the river I get value mostly from Aces as I expect a lot of his King hands or underpairs to fold to the raise. But if I don’t raise, I don’t gain anything, and I don’t expect him to raise back.

So I raise, hoping to make it a size that an Ace or some two pair with the Ace or King will call. I’ve made the best hand that I could hope for. I’m only losing to a two card King or Queen spade flush and he’s not loose so I don’t expect him to hold K2/K3/K4/Q2/Q3/Q4 ect. kinds of hands. KQ/KT or maybe QT of spades are the only flushes left that beat that could be in his range since the Ace is on the board and I hold the Jack. Most of the time the flush doesn’t get there for me on the river so I need to squeeze as much value out of it when it does as I can.

A8 suited was at the bottom of the range that I expected a player with his stats to be calling from the blinds with, but now his flop call and even the river bet/call makes sense.

So that’s a microcosm of microstakes poker in one hand. Did I really think all of that at each step, all the while playing three other tables of poker? Not really. A lot of aspects are habitual reactions to given situations and others, like the awareness the the blinds are short and neither loose nor hyper-aggressive, are things that I check early in the hand and then retain the ramifications of that throughout the hand with very little mental effort or attention. Or at least, I try to do so.

What about my opponent’s play? Based on his stats and his mostly reasonable play I think he’s likely better than many players at this level, but good players will stay with a maximum stack so that they always have the opportunity to win as much as possible when they have the chance. I don’t like his preflop call with A8 suited from the blinds against a player who steals often from the button. It’s an awkward hand in this situation as it’s not a great hand to 3 bet from the blinds with in general, but against a stealer he should probabaly 3 bet it because he has an Ace blocker. If he doesn’t recognize that I steal often, meaning that my range is very wide when I raise, then I think he should just fold preflop. He gets himself into a bunch more difficult situations trying to play this hand when he will be out of position postflop, having to check/call the flop and then having to be first to act on the turn and river. Sure he could flop a flush or flush draw, but the times that he flops an Ace he doesn’t have a strong kicker and can’t get value against someone like me with a wide range when he’s going to be out of position postflop. If I had raised from the cut off and he called from the button that would be a better situation as then he could manage the pot, but even then Aces with a weak suited kicker are going to be dominated by AK/AQ/AJ/AT/A9 anytime that an Ace flops. Just fold it preflop and you save yourself more money than you will win in the long run.

Postflop I think the check/call on the flop is fine, the check on the turn is fine but I probably don’t bet/call the river. I’d prefer him to let me check my garbage behind or to bluff the river. Admittedly two pair is a fairly good hand on this board but it only gets a call from a hand that it beats if I have an Ace or at least a King, which again he has to understand that because I steal often, most of my hands in this situation don’t have an Ace or King, so he’s going to get a fold from most hands that he beats, a raise from most hands (flush, set) that he’s losing to, and a call only from the few times that I hold an Ace here or a few odd hands that have worse two pairs. Again, it’s an awkward situation though, one that could have been avoided by folding preflop.

Take a look at how AK stands up against some hand ranges. The percentage is on the left, then the specific pocket cards that are make up that range. The columns on the right looks at how that range compares with AK and then the odds that the comparison generates.

In other words, when you believe that your opponent could only have AA / KK, you are a 4.6 to 1 underdog with AK, but, it’s rare that you can really narrow an opponent’s range to only those two possibilities.

Having this information is only a starting point. You also need:

1. Reads on your opponent
2. Situation at this moment that might help define your opponent’s hand

Take 1. and 2. and try to define your opponent’s range of hands.

If he is tight, raised from early position, you re-raised and now he has re-re-raised you might narrow his range to only QQ+ and AK but weighted more toward AA  / KK. In fact, this might have been your plan; re-raise him and see if he raises again to test him and fold if he does raise again. On the other hand if you raised from mid position and an aggressive player behind you re-raises you might put his range at 9% or wider. You’ll be out of position on the flop and you’re ahead of his hand range; looks to me like a good situation to get it all in preflop.

Simple. At least for fairly simple situations.

Let’s look at some other aspects.

1. Stack sizes: If the effective stack size (shortest stack size of all players still involved in the hand) is 10 to 20 big blinds, which will happen in tournaments more frequently than in cash games, you may be better open shoving AK and hoping to be called by worse from a desperate player in the blinds or by a loose big stack. There’s no sense raising AK and then just calling a reraise from someone with 15 big blinds in his stack.
2. Fold equity: Fold equity is essentially the chance that your opponent will fold when you bet or raise. If your opponent raises with 77 and you re-raise with AK he may fold. 77 is a 54.3% favorite against AK, but 77 can be tough to play postflop, especially out of position.
3. Coin flip: AK is a 48-52 underdog against 22, but it’s also only a 44-56 underdog against QQ. This, combined with fold equity and stack size considerations makes AK a good hand to be very aggressive with preflop in tournaments. The 77 in the previous example is a 81-19 underdog against QQ whereas AK is in the same coin-flip situation against QQ/JJ/TT/99 … 22.
4. Domination: AK dominates some other good hands such as AQ/KQ. Sometimes it can be worthwhile to just call with AK in case your opponent has a weaker ace or king and will pay you off when you both hit. This is particularly useful if you have position post flop and your opponent is not aggressive post flop unless they hit the flop. If you both miss the board it may be a good situation to float and you can take the pot away on the turn or river.

Finally, consider that Doyle Brunson claimed to prefer AK over AA because AK is easier to give up postflop. I don’t know that his statement still holds true given the development of aggression in poker over recent years. AK that misses the entire board may still be the best hand against an aggressive opponent who routinely bets all three streets, but folding AK is easier to consider folding than is AA.

DO NOT make the beginner’s mistake of thinking of AK as a “drawing hand“. This implies that it has no value unless you catch something. AK has huge value preflop, is dominated by only AA or KK (which are only 6 of 1,225 remaining possible hands after removing your A and K from the possibilities of cards that your opponent can have), makes a great semibluff since you always have overcards that could spike a later pair, and is often the best hand even if you miss the board. AK, like any hand, loses value the more players that see the flop so don’t play AK passively preflop unless there is a good reason to do so. It makes me sad when I catch a weird two pair in the big blind because the pot was limped and I stack someone who just called preflop with AK and can’t believe that when an Ace flops that they do not have the best hand.