Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
The best thing to do
The best thing to do is you are up against an AK player is to raise the flop if you miss, since raising the turn can get expensive. Also if you have some kind of modest holding like a small pocket pair that doesn't have much improvement equity (ability to become an even stronger hand) when behind, you're sometimes best to raise as well. This way you don't find yourself in a spot calling multiple bullets with a really marginal hand that will rarely improve. Also this will allow you to take initiative back in the hand if they do just call, and then you can check the turn or later turn your hand into a bluff with more credibility. Just because someone is an AK doesn't mean they won't have a hand sometimes. You don’t want to invest too much with mid pair or an under pair to the board, unless you feel very confident in your read. If you hit the flop hard and have position it’s best to call their flop bet and raise the turn or call when they bet again. CRW (Calls raises with weak hands) Against opponents who will call raises with weak hands, you want to do your best to see how much they’ll call before the flop and maximize your edge by raising as much as they’ll call. You’ll see some players that will call 5xBB––8xBB and occasionally even more with weak hands in the hopes of catching some fluke flop and busting you. In order to make their play as unprofitable as possible, you want to raise continually when they're in a hand with you, especially if you have position. There are a lot of CRW players who will limp and call large raises with weak hands like J9o, T7o, 56o, etc.
When you notice that a player
When you notice that a player is calling a lot of raises, pay particular attention to the hands they show down and note how much they called with those hands. When you have a big hand and raise, continually try an increase the size of that raise until you can find a size that will fold them out. Then do your best to stay within the range that will keep them in the hand with you.