Playing AK and AQ

Playing AK and especially AQ has always caused me a problems and many exits from tournaments. AJ I have already learned to discard as playable, good enough to call a 3xbb raise - but nothing more than that. Unfortunately I am under the illusion that AQ is way better. What can you call after the 2nd raise with AQ? Fact is you are probably beating nothing at this point and at best you are flipping - or you could be horribly behind. Say a pot is raised and someone moves all in on top of that. What is the range of hands that would make that move? I would say (all depending on the stage of the tournament of course) that it is TT, JJ, which you are flipping against, and QQ, KK, AA and AK all of which you are in terrible trouble against. The only hands you are really dominating are KQ and AJ and both of these hands are highly unlikely to be reraising/going all in. A lot of the same applies to AK except you can move QQ to the flip column, AQ to the dominating column and obviously make KK less likely as you are holding one of them. Overall a significant improvement, but it is still deceptive.

Realising the dangers of AK I still can't seem to get it right though - as in an example from a SNG yesterday: Very first hand I get dealt AK. Pot gets raised under the gun and I reraise. This is a move I often make with AK. It serves a couple of purposes:
1) I should unearth any AA or KK as these people would normally shove over the top of my reraise. That saves me a lot of chips later in the hand if a flop comes with either an A or a K and they have made trips / have an overpair and I get stuck in a hand I can't get away from.

2) Enables me to take down quite a few pots there and then that I would have been flipping with. The reraise often makes 55-TT fold.

Back to the SNG. First hand of any SNG is always a minefield as all the nutters are still in it. Bless them, they make poker value, but they also make it extremely tricky in the beginning. My reraise was met with another reraise, now to about 27bb or more than a 3rd of our starting stack by the guy to my right. It comes back to the guy with the initial raise and he goes all in. Action is on me. What now? At this stage I know I am probably facing two all ins and thus getting paid 2:1. But what are the chances of neither of them having the dreaded AA or KK? Slim I decide and I fold. Last player calls and they turn over their cards: AQ and AT. Dreadful play by both of them - especially the AT. Board is five bricks and AQ claims the pot. Doh! AK is generally a good hand to take the lead with but not to follow - AQ is a good hand to mess you up and crash out of tournaments - at least for me.

Day 5: Carnage

Starting balance: $151.87

Let it be said right away: this was not a good day. Had it been a golf it would have been a case of wild drive missing the fairway, poor iron to miss the green yet with some short game magic I manage to get it up and down for a scrambling par. I played 15 $5 SNGs and only managed to cash 4 times - 2 wins, 1 2nd and a 3rd. I played a couple of $2 MTTs as well (90 seaters), one of them being my final tournament of the night. In that last one I managed a 4th place finish after completely messing up my endgame. I was tired, it was late (well, early morning really) and I pushed to hard to finish them all off. Instead they finished me off. The day as a whole was ugly and badly played by me, but thanks to that last effort I did relatively little damage to my balance and finished with $145.07

Day 6: Vintage

Starting balance: $145.07

I didn't play all that much as I was also playing live with some mates. However the 11 SNGs I did manage ended with 4 wins and a 2nd for a very solid profit. Especially my headsup play was good as I for once took the time to finish off my opponents instead of adopting the shove-and-hope strategy. In a couple of these headsup I went in a firm chip-underdog but took my time to outplay them headsup and win it chip for chip. One headsup took about 30 mins, longer than it took us to get rid of the first 7 players, but in the end I was victorious. The villain must have left a little deflated as he arrived at HU 3:1 up and left with 2nd place and all grinded out. It is was very pleasing as I have never really enjoyed nor been good at HU. It has cost me many tournament wins in the past as I have been outplayed in this stage of the game. At the end of the day the balance read $185.87 and $210 no longer seems so far off.

Douchebag