How Not to Play AK Suited

I find that when I read blogs about hands of poker, they always tend to be bad beat stories that the sufferer wants to share with the rest of the world.

While I’m sure that there are very good players who go on runs where they receive more than their fair share of bad beats, my guess is that the vast majority of players lose most of their money on hands where they have quite simply played badly.

On that note I would like to share a hand with you where I made multiple mistakes and lost my whole stack. The game was 1-2 no limit holdem (it was a live game). Before the flop there were three callers and I was on the button and looked down at AK suited. I had roughly 360 euro and decided to raise the pot to 15; the blinds folded and the three players called.

The flop came down 9-6-3 with two hearts and the action went check, check, check so I bet the pot again which was roughly 60 euro. The next person who was first to act before the flop re-raised to 180 euro and the two other players folded.

Now here is where it all started to go wrong. The player in first position had been playing very loose and had about 400 in chips. I wanted to re-re-raise but just as I was about to he said “lets get it all in, I’m game”. Now he had been playing loose and I thought maybe he will call if I go all in and do I really want to be all in right now with nothing but a draw (the answer I think was yes….. live and learn I guess). Anyway instead of pushing all in or folding I call.

The Turn card comes with another 6, now he checks. I’m thinking is this weakness or has he just turned a set into a full house. Not knowing the answer to that question I check.

Finally, the river comes an A and now I’ve made 2 pair A’s and 6’s with a K kicker. My opponent goes all in and again I have no idea where I stand. You see my check on the turn was really weak with all the draws out there if I had anything good I would have gone all in so potentially he could have missed a draw and pushed at the end but I also considered that a bet on the river is very rarely a bluff.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that he had an over pair maybe 10’s and was pushing hoping that I either missed the A, missed a draw or hit my A but couldn’t call. In the end I called and I can tell you straight up that I lost. Why? Because I played the hand like a scared little puppy. Just out of interest what do you think he had? Remember the cards were as follows:

9h-6h-3c-6s-Ac

My hand: AhKh

Opponent’s hand: xx