Letters to Doctor Jack
Hi,
My question involves hands like AK and AQ. I find that when I am in late position and there have been a lot of players limping in ahead of me that there is not much point in raising pre flop with AK. For example, most players will call my 3x bb raise simply because they have already invested a few chips, and as I am unlikely to hit the flop then most of the time I am throwing away needless chips due to too many callers. Should i raise bigger or should i simply call the blind when there are a lot of people in the pot? Also is AK good enough to call anything with pre flop, i.e. if someone moves all in pre flop are there any situations in which you wouldn't call??
Thank you
Paddy
The wasted opportunities of your poker life are about to come to an abrupt halt! Being in late position and looking down at AQ / AK should mean two things:
Step 1: Get up off your sofa and have a little nuts rumba dance around the coffee table.
Step 2: Get your raising underpants out of the drawer and don them with pride!
Clearly you have being playing quite a bit as you understand the 3x standard raise option. Permit me to educate you a little more on this. A three times raise is only a standard raise should you be facing the small and big blind. If you then add limpers to this the amount of money in the pot rises and so should your raise. If you do not raise the price further you run the risk of pricing your opponents into the pot. They will call simply because you have given them the value to do so. What you need to do is begin with your standard three times raise (say 40 x 3 = 120) and then add 40 for every limper into the pot. So therefore if you have three limpers into the pot plus the two blinds the price of your bet should be approximately 240. This, my friend is where you are going wrong. You have a big pre-flop hand do not allow an Ace-rag or drawing hand to come with you and catch on the flop!
AK and AQ are possibly the two most overplayed cards in poker. Be very careful you do not overvalue them too much. There are many situations where you may consider putting them down pre-flop but it all involves having a very good read on your opponents and taking their stacks into consideration.
Best of luck at the tables
Dr Jack
All about Dr Jack
Dr Jack is one of four brothers from a large family of fifty two. A dapper gent, you will always see him in a suit. Although on the more debauched side, he claims to like a woman with a nice pair and has occasion to get blind drunk on his favoured tipple, “Gin”. He likes to run occasionally and would describe himself as straight, although most people do think he is a bit nuts. He was once caught folding to a gay waiter...
Flush with cash and a member of several affluent clubs, he once ran a marginally successful fresh water lobster farm. Unfortunately the business flopped leaving him feeling like a bit of a cowboy. He left the world of opulence to follow his heart all the way to poker heaven. His peers describe him as a “diamond geezer” and “one of a kind”. Those who have fallen foul to his superior skills refer to him with less gracious terms.
Dr Jack lives in a rather full house in the Cotswold’s with his two dogs Siegfried and Roy and a Bolivian tree frog called Boris.
