Ace-King can be a tricky hand to play in poker tournaments. It’s value as a starting hand changes significantly throughout the course of a tournament. How you play Ace-King depends primarily on how deep the stacks are at your table. In this article, keep in mind that your stack is not necessarily as important as some of the other stacks at the table. For example, if you have 100 big blinds, but everyone else at the table has 20 big blinds, you will want to play your hands as if you have 20 big blinds. That’s called your “effective” stack.
50+ Big Blinds
Usually the stacks are only this deep in the early stages of a tournament. Ace-King is less valuable at this point than it will be in the later stages. As a general rule, I don’t think three-betting (that is to say re-raising someone’s raise, thus making a “third” bet) with Ace-King is an absolute must when the stacks are this deep. There are some situations where you will three bet and others where you won’t.
When to Three-Bet
- You’re still in early position and you want to dissuade a bunch of callers behind you.
- The table is very active (Ace-King does better in a pot contested between just a couple of players).
- The original raisor is opening with a very loose range.
When not to Three-Bet
- The table is playing tight and straight-forward (by flat-calling Ace-King you create trapping value against players with smaller Aces when an Ace flops).
- You’re in late position and the remaining players fold a lot.
The key to playing Ace-King when the stacks are deep(ish) is not to over-commit yourself to the pot. Rather than looking to double-up, you should be looking to win a medium-sized pot at a showdown. By playing this hand with a “double-up” mentality, you’re liable to get all of your chips in against Aces, Kings, or a set, as most people will fold anything else when the stacks are this deep.
30-40 Big Blinds
In this range, you can get Ace-King all-in preflop and feel good about it. Make a standard raise. If someone re-raises you, it would be correct to move all-in against just about anyone who isn’t super, super tight and passive. If you do not get re-raised and have to play this hand after the flop, you should continuation bet about 50-75% of the size of the pot regardless of whether the flop helps you or not. Often times you will take it down after the flop even if you didn’t make a pair. If you do make a pair, you can look to play for all of your chips. If you do not make a pair and someone raises your flop bet, unfortunately you have no choice but to fold.
You can consider not three-betting while you are this deep. The stacks are kind of weird for a three-bet with this hand. Consider just flat-calling some raises in hopes that someone behind you will re-raise.
16-30 Big Blinds
In this range you’re looking to three-bet all-in, or effectively three-bet all-in. What I mean by that is if someone raises to 3 big blinds, you want to re-raise to 10-11 big blinds with this hand thus signaling that you’re not going away. Never, never re-raise with Ace-King with this stack size only to fold later in the hand. If you re-raise with this stack size, all of your chips are going in on the flop regardless.
Less than 15 Big Blinds
Shove all-in preflop. About as easy of a decision as you can have at the poker table.