Is there any more hotly discussed starting hand in poker besides A-K?
We would say no. Some experts refer to it as a monster hand worthy of committing all the chips preflop. Others exercise caution and call it merely a speculative or drawing hand albeit with two of the top cards in rank.
Obviously, there are different versions of A-K. The suited version appears more rarely since there are only four ways to make a suited A-K. The off-suit versions of A-K are more common since there are 16 ways to make that hand.
Since there is a roughly 30 percent chance of flopping a pair with any two hole cards, the beauty of A-K is that when you do flop a pair, you have “top top.” That is top pair, top kicker, either an ace with a king or a king with an ace. Also, A-K dominates other “big” aces such as A-Q, A-J and A-10.
And A-K can flop the nut straight and A-K suited can flop the nut flush. So even though A-K will miss the flop the majority of times, it holds considerable potential.
Regardless, there we were in one of the local Las Vegas poker emporiums whiling away a weekend afternoon. We got off to a choppy start with several preflop raises that whiffed the flop. But we doubled through with K-K against an aggressive player who pushed all-in with 8-8. The kings held up even though an ace appeared on the turn.
So we were in good shape chipswise when we picked up A-K — the offsuit variety — in early position and tossed out a modest raise. The same aggressive player who had earlier pushed all-in with 8-8 was the only player to call the raise.
We peeked up and were pleasantly surprised to see the dealer had put out a flop of A-2-K with mixed suits.
Well. Upon reflection, we decided to lead out with a bet of about 75 percent of the pot. The aggressive player, who was on a first-name basis with the dealer, called. We were pleasantly surprised again when the dealer put out another ace on the turn. That gave us aces full of kings, the immortal nuts. Ah, but what did the aggressive player have? An ace with a smaller kicker was the mostly likely holding.
We decided to play cagey after turning the stone-cold nuts and checked. Not surprisingly, the aggressive player bet almost 80 percent of her remaining stack. With the trap sprung, we hesitated only a few seconds before declaring all-in. The aggressive player actually thought for a few seconds before committing her remaining chips. Obviously, she wasn’t in love with her hand at that point but was pot-committed.
The river was an inconsequential deuce, and we flipped our hand up. The dealer didn’t even bother to declare the hand. Either he thought it was obvious or he didn’t want to embarrass the player with whom he was on a first-name basis.
But we raked in the chips, and she got up to leave.
So there you have at least one way to play A-K successfully in Texas hold’em — make the absolute nuts and get all your chips in the pot.
Simple, huh?
