I 4bet AK mostly because doing so allows me to take control of betting on the flop. Against players who aren't observant/thinking, i will usually fold A-K if i am OOP or call and see if i can take it away from them with my position.

Another good thing about 4betting A-K is that most players with 5bet/push their K-K/A-A preflop, making it easy for me to get rid of my hand. If someone could tell me how to filter my stats to show my opponents fold % after i 4bet, i would be happy to run it and post the results. My guess is 75% of the time my opponents fold their hand.


3rd situation. You say that you think you will get someone to fold to your 3-bet when the pot is reraised? I don't think you are going to get BOTH of your opponents to fold here. I fold here.
I would say that my opponents fold often enough to make 4betting profitable. Against someone with a tight 3betting range (A-K/Q-Q+), i am probably not going to be 4betting. There are also other players who won't fold A-Q to a 4bet. Those aren't the players i am targetting with 4betting A-K. Fortunately, there are a lot of players who 3bet more lightly than that and who pay attention. So, by 4betting A-K, i can frequently get other A-K's and Q-Q's to lay their hands down, not to mention weaker hands.

4th situation:
What is your opponents 3-betting range? How deep are the stacks? This is really vague advice. If we are assuming deep stacks then I would give this guy a 3-betting range of TT+/AK. What exactly are you a favorite of? Also, presumably you are OOP most of the time in this spot.
Lol, i really just threw this post up. I should have put the 3bet standard at the top of this whole post.

Before we get to the choices, i am assuming that opponents 3-bet range is (J-J+, A-Q+).
I didn't explicitly mention it, but this was meant to be the standard 3bet range of my opponents in all the situations. Also, i should have mentioned "assume 100xBB stacks for all situations".

What i am favored against isn't as important as what hands he will give up when faced with a 4bet. I believe that most opponents (the ones i 4bet with A-K) will give up a significant portion of their 3bet range to a 4bet.

True, i will usually be OOP. But, it is true that as the the stacks get shorter, the less important position is. That is because there will be fewer bets made during the hand (since you would presumably be AI before the river if half your stack was in preflop).

6th situation:
Too vague again. What happened to the other limpers? Anytime you get 3-bet with AK you aren't liking life. You are probably going to have to hit to win and when you do you won't win much. Sometimes when you hit you will end up losing more money to a set(AA/KK). This is reverse implied odds.
The second limper folded. I should've written that.

I love life when i get 3bet with AK, unless i am against a nit. This would be when I would 4bet.

I don't think you have to win to hit, unless you play your hand that way. Like i actually did say in the OP (something i actually wrote in my first post , and in many many poker books ), being the aggressor gives you more opportunities to win the hand.

Reverse implied odds do exist, but only apply in this situation if someone decides to trap me preflop with A-A/K-K. If they do, i make a note of it and generally stop 4betting them with A-K.[/quote]