Playing Ace-King Heads-Up in a Reraised Pot After Missing the Flop
DECISION POINT: In a tournament, a player in middle position player calls and the button raises. You reraise from the big blind with A?K?. The player in middle position folds and the button calls. The flop comes 8?7?2?. You bet the flop and the button calls. The turn is the 3?. The action is on you...
PRO ANSWER: Our opponent called us after we reraised preflop and called again after our continuation bet on the flop. Given this action, the button's range of hands likely includes overpairs to the flop, occasionally sets and one-pair hands such as top pair, and rarely two pair or a straight draw.
The fact that we hold both an ace and a king makes both pocket aces and pocket kings less likely holdings for our opponent than pocket queens or jacks, as there are now fewer combinations of those hands that the button could hold.
This effect makes a turn semi-bluff all in even more attractive, since the majority of the time our opponent will now be hesitant to call an all in. Opponents will fold hands like 9x9x-JxJx to this action much more often than QxQx-AxAx.
This is an ideal time to fire a turn second barrel semi-bluff all in, since we can cause a decent portion of our opponent's overall range to fold, in addition to still having significant equity in the pot when we are called.
Putting our opponent all in on this turn is the best play.
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