Ace-King is a truly premium hand and is only drawing thin against the two biggest pairs preflop: Aces and Kings. Combine that with the fact that A-K can find itself dominating some other big hands and you’re generally the one who’s laughing when you get it in preflop. However, you’re not always able to do that – certainly not in the early stages of a tournament – so how do you go about playing A-K out of position when there’s still plenty of action to come?

Opening the pot

Let’s say you’ve started with 1,500 and it’s the first blind level at 10/20 and you’re in early position with Big Slick. You raise to 60 and are called in two spots. Even against two callers and out of position you’re still in a great situation here with a huge hand going to the flop.

Hitting the flop

You’ve hit the flop on a King or Ace-high board. Great. What now? Well, first of all do you bet or check intending to raise? Generally speaking a check-raise is a bad idea here, as it pushes out hands that would otherwise give you action because you are telegraphing massive strength. Check-calling is also going to slow down your opponents and may stop you from extracting a lot of value. So your final option is to make a continuation bet, and this is generally a far better line to take against standard opponents because, well, you’re expected to make one whether you’ve hit or not. In most cases you’ve got the best hand, so you should build up the pot, plus you prevent opponents from taking a free card that could put you in hot water.

If you get called, checking behind on the turn is often the best line to take, both for the sake of pot control and because you’ll often induce opponents with a worse hand to bet or turn their hand into a bluff. Against more cautious opponents the check on the turn can also persuade them to call a good-sized value bet on the river with your top pair. If you get raised you have the option of reraising, and against opponents you think will donk off with a bad top pair or worse, getting it in there and then isn’t the worst option. Against most players though you’re only going to get called by a hand that crushes you.

Playing the turn (when you were called on the flop)

Okay, you’ve bet the flop and been called. So now you’re going to take a line that involves checking to your opponents. As mentioned this is both for pot control and so as not to scare away hands that you’re crushing, i.e. worse top pair or second pair. A check here can induce opponents who were floating to pull the trigger or allow players calling with a draw or weak pocket pair to bluff. Also, as mentioned, a check sets your opponents up to call a good-sized value bet on the river. Think of it from their point of view. Someone raises from early position, fires the flop then checks the turn when they meet some resistance? Often they’ll try to steal the pot on the river, and if a blank card peels off you’ll often think your pair is good and make the call.

Playing the turn (when you were raised on the flop and called)

Checking in this spot is also a good approach, and if your opponent checks behind you can usually feel safe to value-bet the river looking to get called by a weaker top pair. If your opponent follows up his flop raise by dropping the hammer with another bet on the turn then you’re in a tough spot with just top pair. If it’s a small bet relative to your stacks then feel free to call and reassess on the river. If the bet is for a large chunk of change and effectively commits to you to calling on the river it’s often best just to muck the hand and move on. Does it feel horrible? Yes. Does it mean you’re sometimes going to get bluffed off the best hand? Also yes, but this is poker and it’s about making the correct decisions over a wide spread of hands. More often than not you’ll be saving yourself chips, not losing them.

Should you always take this bet-check line on relatively dry boards? No, because in poker there are very few universal rules. But as a standard approach this should serve you well in most situations when you’re out of position with Big Slick.