Great post! I never really thought about it in those terms as in "hoping" to improve with 55 and "expecting" to improve with AK. Big cards don't automatically mean a big hand as I expect a lot of players get trapped into thinking. A guy gets AJ and he's holy shit I've got a monster I'm going all in!" OK not likely but you know what I mean. Just because a face card is a higher "value" card than a number card doesn't mean that any two face cards together are going to hold up. OK I'm rambling now so I'll shut up but great post anyway. I'll be able to think about AK a little more clearly now.