AKo and low-mid SC

Apparently I'm not doing so hot with my AKo and low-mid SC hands.

AKo is an interesting hand, you can either lose a huge pot or win a small to medium sized pot with them very often. I generally don't play them aggressive. I feel my biggest weakness with this hand is that I don't value bet them enough. Also I probably felt them in bad situations occasionally. Honestly this is a huge problem. Generally you won't get much action with AK type hand unless they have the K or the A on the flop. So how do you really get value from them? If a villian folds often when a A or K flops, your AK hands are almost worthless. Obviously there are times when people will raise you with a draw or something. But that is whole new can of worms. If you let them control the pot, the chances are that you don't know where you stand. Very often I fold to a scare card on the turn, hence losing value when I get bluffed. Sure, I'm probably laying down the worst hand very often. But how do you balance between getting value and losing value with this hand?

I feel AK is one of the toughest hands to play w/ extracting the most value in mind. It's such a vulnerable hand in these low stakes. You can't correctly induce bluffs with such a weak hand also, because letting a free card out is probably a mistake very often. And you rarely know where you stand, you are hoping your hand is best by showdown. These days, loose players tend to just call the flop with any piece and hope to improve. If they improve, they'll continue, if not they fold. So what ends up happening is that you win very small from them when they don't have much, you lose semi big when they happen to bluff you or hit 2P+. Man, this is a tough issue. I definitely still have a lot more to learn here.


Low-Mid SC type hands, wow these hands are totally a spew for me. I didn't notice this until I decide to do my random PT evaluation check. Basically I usually play them in multiway and steal in LP. Definitely their value is from their deceptive nature and blind stealing capabilities. You can almost never play them profitably cold calling against one raiser. You just don't hit the flop often enough to continue and if you do hit, you have to play them aggressively. Only time cold calling would be okay is if you plan to make a play whether or not you hit the flop, this is definitely not part of my game. But that's what you would need to do. Of course the advantage with these hand is that if you don't hit the flop hard, you get away cheaply.

My question with these hand is that, should I expect them to be unprofitable? I mean they do open up the rest of my game, but I preferably want them to at least break even or gain a small profit. I feel as I climb up the stakes ladder, these hands will become more and more valuable as fold equity goes up. Outplaying people postflop is very hard when they call you down with practically anything, and these hands just don't hit hard enough. Also I think in addition to my semi passive play these days(low aggression turn/river), these hands are death trap for me.


I don't have answer for these, but I like getting my mind engaged for a certain issue and hopefully get an answer sooner or later.