4plr cash game, single blind

[texas_muck'em]

starting stacks were 80 big blinds,
but after about 4 hours
I got up to 180bb,
we lost a player,
one guy had 165ishbb,
and the other had 70bb,
I get AKs first to act and I make it 3bb to go, dealer folds, and the blind bumps it up to 16bb(which was the guy with 165bb), I didn't want to play for stacks with AK, so I fold pre.
last time he put in a big raise it was on a turn
I had pocket 8's, action was my raise on the button to 3bb, he calls from the blind, he checks to me on the flop, I pot raise it with my set, he calls making the pot 18bb, turn comes the 9 and he bets into me 24bb, i fold my set face up, and he turns up KJo
so I decide to have my AK play another day.... at the time I figured "f'it, don't want a tough decision post, don't want to be flipping or worse for 180bb, I'm either gonna lose a big pot or win a small pot"
should I have at least seen a flop? never been in that spot before

he had jacks, like me he wanted to know where he was at before stacks went in... I used to play jacks like that but then I got some opposing advice, I dunno, I thought out optimal strategies, but I gave up on thinking I know the ("equity"?) of jacks preflop... stacked jacks once, hit my set, bet like I had top pair (10) trying to get two overs to fold

[Tim]

I get AKs first to act and I make it 3bb to go, dealer folds, and the blind bumps it up to 16bb(which was the guy with 165bb), I didn't want to play for stacks with AK, so I fold pre.

I don't understand the "I didn't want to play for stacks with AK" comment. You can easily call and treat it as a drawing hand if you wish. You have the benefit of position. Even a raise doesn't commit you to the hand so I don't get why you think you're playing for stacks.

he had jacks, like me he wanted to know where he was at before stacks went in...

When a player makes that kind of bet (assuming it's not his normal raise) then JJ is one of the hands I'd be putting him on, along with TT, QQ and AQ. Of course AA and KK are also in his range, if he's the type of player who gets scared about them being cracked.

Folding AKs here was weak play in my opinion. However, be thankful that he likes to show his cards.... use this information to your advantage.

[texas_muck'em]

Folding AKs here was weak play in my opinion.

I dunno, he was capable of a big c-bet with or without the nuts, I wasn't thinking about the preflop action, I was thinking about the size of the bets post flop. And JJ was one possible hand, he big bet a flop K 3 4 with KK in the hole, he owns the board and he's bluffing us out of the pot with a monster... my fault for not giving this infomation in previous post.
he was also not paying off better hands, this one time, I min raise, he calls, board comes down A J K 4 T, we are laughing with each other at the river, nobody betting at all, he checks to me, with a grin, and I'm snickering as I half pot it... he can see me laughing because of his check on the river, its so obvious I'm throwing away money for a laugh just because nobody bet post flop, he checks on the river, I laugh and throw in 50cents, he says "is my nine good? " and he folds
I turn over the exact same hand

[RyckyRych]

I think flatting with AKs would be the right play here for a couple reasons.

One, considering his read on the situation he may feel that if he is ahead, he is only very slightly ahead of the villain's range.

Two, when a reason like One is present, having effective stacks are about 10-14x the bet is a bit awkward. Its a bit too much to shove and reraising creates a bit of a mess also as it can make post-flop bet sizing tough. Also, if he reraises the villain can put us in a bad spot if he then shoves. We might have enticing odds but what does it say about his range? I hate being the one to make the tough decisions.

Then again, I don't play cash.

[Queso]

What Tim said. Call and see a flop for spades or the straight. You know JJ, QQ, and KK are in his range. So you might outflop him if an ace falls. Once the flop comes down, then you can figure out whether or not you're playing for stacks. Don't see how you can open fold AKs there. Especially 4 or 3 handed, whatever it was.

[texas_muck'em]

I hear what your saying about flatting pre, but I couldn't see getting paid off if I hit a monster, and I didn't want to be in a realy tough spot if i did hit a pair with a bloated pot. I figured it would be a "hit or miss" play, that would risk alot of chips post flop given the pot size, so I saved myself the chips pre.

[RyckyRych]

I hear what your saying about flatting pre, but I couldn't see getting paid off if I hit a monster (then why play any hand at all? Plus, what are you calling a "monster"?), and I didn't want to be in a realy tough spot if i did hit a pair with a bloated pot. (Again, why play any hand then? Post-flop is so hard! Sure, its tough to play post-flop with just one pair, but this is why you have to play his range. If the flop comes A73 rainbow, you crush his range and figure to get at least one bet.) I figured it would be a "hit or miss" play, that would risk alot of chips post flop given the pot size, so I saved myself the chips pre.

As for the last bit, you can't just look at it as just the one hand. You must look at what your expected value is in these spots over time. Yes, you will likely lose more times than you win, but if the times you do win (perhaps on hitting a big draw, whatever) likely outweights the times you lose.

AKs is a premium hand. Play it like one. If you are going to constantly fold to reraises with hands as strong as AKs then your opponents will soon figure out that they can resteal very liberably against you (meaning nearly any two cards). If all you play back with is KK+ they can easily fold without thought. The EV with such plays are very much in their favor.

How would you have handled QQ or JJ? Fold because an overcard might hit? "Set mine"? I'm curious.

Another question. Be honest and tell me what hands you are raising here, first to act in a four-handed cash game. I know you are fairly wide but how wide? When I get to Vegas tomorrow I hope to see your answer to these things.

[texas_muck'em]

with that table, and that player, at that time, after the action previous, with his stack, the pot size, the implied odds, the reverse implied odds, I wasn't playing that hand.
before then I doubled up with 74o, and bluffed most my hands, a better spot for me would have been a slow play at that point
the first hand we sat down with I got TT on a final board of K Q 9 9 3, and i caught his bluff, for all I knew he was ready to play that again, but this time have it
as for vegas, thats probably out of my league, but as phil ivey sez "take what the table gives you" and play within your bank roll.
I normally do play AKs aggressively, its a great hand preflop, you can fold out small pockets (against good players... "what the table gives you", had AA in a cash game last night and raised $2 from under the gun, with blinds .50 .50, had a caller with
K6o in one of the blinds, the board read K 4 T 9 before all the chips went in, and I folded out alot of the draws on the flop probably for $5, their hand looked like KQ, thats why I shoved, little did I know they could play a weak king, and I could have gone broke

[texas_muck'em]

I saw a guy beautifully play weak kings stacking bigger kings with two pair, until another guy beautifully played T6s and stacked him with a straight. The table gives you

[RyckyRych]

Quite a ramble, I'm not sure what you tried to tell me.

You didn't answer my questions either.

Now I have more. What, exactly, did you know about this guy? We knew he flats with hands like KJo. Was this his first reraise? How many hands did you play with him? What hands did he raise with? How much did he raise with those hands? Did he ever open limp? Does he only bet out when he "has it" or will he bluff at pots?

Quite a bit to consider before we can narrow his range so much that we fold AKs preflop. However, after he shows you JJ you know folding AKs was a mistake. If you really felt, for whatever reasons, he had QQ+ only in that spot, I can see folding.

As a default I don't put people so tight that I'm not going to play for stacks with AKs. Now if I'm playing with some of the old ladies at the local bar league, where they reraise exactly AA... well that's different, LOL. Yes, they will limp/flat KK. And its free poker. I can nearly guarantee that your common villain at the online cash game tables are at least JJ+/AK+ four-handed... if not wider.

Then again, I still don't play cash. I'm CERTAINLY at least calling AKs here, if not simply 4-bet overshoving AIPF.