How do you play AK or Big Slick in No Limit Hold 'Em?

Ace King is one of the trickiest hands to play in No Limit Hold Em. It's argueably the 3rd best hand in poker, even though in a heads up all-in situation they are behind 22-QQ. This hand gets it's edge over lower pocket pairs because lower pocket pairs often have to fold when faced with overcards and aggression postflop.

The only hands you have to worry about are AA and KK. These hands have you dominated, but it's more easy to get away from these hands with AK because if you don't hit your pair you often won't go further than the flop against big aggression.

You make your big money against hands you have dominated that are overplayed, such as AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ. Players who know no better will go all-in with top pair second best kicker without considering that you could easily have AK.

So how do you play this hand?

I recommend an aggressive approach, you want to isolate the smaller pocket pairs, and the hands you have dominated that are still willing to see a flop with AQ, AJ, KQ, etc.

If you hit the flop then you have to decide what your opponent is willing to go all in with, if he is good and is committing on the flop then you should fold because your opponent will probably not be holding the second best pair, and is more likely holding a set or two pair. If your opponent is clueless enough to commit with second best kicker then you should commit with your top pair top kicker.

If you don't hit the flop, continue to be aggressive, there is a good chance that your opponent didn't hit the flop either and if there is overcards to his lower pocket pair he will be forced to fold. If you meet a lot of resistance and your opponent isn't overly tricky, then fold because he probably got a piece of it or has an overpair to the board.

When would I play this hand passively? When there are particular loose passive games. When it takes a large bet to make people fold and when you do put in a bet big enough to fold people's hands it's often folding everything except QQ, KK, AA. In these situations I would rather connect big on the board, see every street as cheaply as possible and value bet the flop, turn and river when you hit it big.

When you play passively you have to make sure you have a big hand. No longer can you commit with top pair top kicker. You can be aggressive with it on the flop, but don't commit unless you are shortstacked. Chase your flush draws if you have proper implied odds (you are deepstacked, your opponents are deepstacked, and you feel you have a good chance to get most of their money in the middle when you do make your hand.)

Playing AK with a shortstack.

This is simple, you should put in around 10% of your stack or 3-5bb. If you hit your pair or better on the flop then you should commit and try and get your money and everyone else's money in the middle as quickly as possible.

Playing AK with a deepstack.

This is much more complicated. Again, decide whether to play it aggressively or passively. Then it comes down to reading, calculating, and reacting. You need to put your opponent on a range of hands on every street, calculate your odds of you hand winning by showdown and how much it will cost to see showdown, calculate your odds of you bluffing your opponent out of his range of hands, and react and make a decision based on which is the most profitable decision, seeing the hand to the showdown, bluffing your opponent off his hand, or folding.

My advice with this hand. If you are new to the game and your reads are still developing then I suggest just playing shorthanded and use the simple strategy of committing on the flop when you hit your hand.

If you are a good player, then depend on your reads and calculations and stick to those decisions, don't deviate from your plans just because of a twitch or self-doubt.