I limp with it in hopes of trapping a weaker ace.

If someone raised later pf, I'd call.

By limping, you gain information on all your opponents starting hands which is valuable pf.

I limp with it most of the time aswell. However, I do mix it up with raises everyonce and a whil to not become too predictable. The amount I raise with it is 6XBB. That is the usuall PF raise on my tables. Make sure when u raise with it it is the same amopunt as all ur other PF raises, so certain hands cannot be distinguished from others.

I will also Limp-Reraise with it as well. However certain guidlines have to be met. If there is only me and another limper and a player in LP comes in with a raise I will re-raise (only if the LP raiser will do so on light values). I will also limp reraise if someone makes a weak PF raise like 2XBB - 3XBB. That usually screams out to me AJ, AQ, AT ( at least at my table) Hope this helps!

At those stakes I would probably raise all the time because people will call you with A9 and still play the hand strong when they flop an ace, but as you move up....you will not get action from AJ and below so I like to limp and try to win a medium pot from a weaker ace.


In higher stakes games when you raise AK and get called and flop an ace and get heavy action, you lose a large portion of the time. When the flop is AQ5 and you get raised, you better fold. They dont have A9, but if you had limped, then very well may have A9 -AJ

if you can continually take it down w/ continuation bets after a 4xbb pf raise (after getting 1-2 callers), then do continue to raise it. however, realize that this really has nothing to do w/ having AK, since you could be raising w/ any 2 in this spot.

the thing i really hate about AK is, it's the hand everyone puts you on when you come in for a raise. one of those win small pot, lose big pot hands.

personally, i limp w/ it early probably 90% of the time. i've had a lot of success outkicking weak players holding Ax and calling bad players raising w/ AQ/J. it's a bit of a finesse, but if you're careful, i much prefer this line to raising.

With AK, I like the limp from EP/EMP. A few reasons:

(1) I hate playing out of position in a big pot with a predictable hand;
(2) If everybody folds to your EP raise, you get very little;
(3) After a limp from EP, you can check-raise an A-high or K-high flop and find out very quickly if you are ahead;
(4) Keep weaker aces in the hand.

i generally limp with AK in EP and call smallish raises, i raise in LP
but i really disagree with limp reraising it in EP, any position for that matter. i think ive discussed this very topic with Stelvask on more than one occasion and i feel like the most common scenario is that i get stuck with TPTK, and thats just not a hand that i wanna get involved in a big pot with, so why reraise AK PF? seems to me that limp/calling from EP gives you a better chance to get away from a hand when you miss the flop
just my humble 2cents