How to qualify for the EPT: AK-Premium Hand or Timebomb?

• 31.06.2025 2:42 pm
• Helen
• 0 Comments

This happens to be the second article out of the seven-part series Qualifier Pierre Neuville. For the next series always check back every single Thursday.

Take a look at the list below for the links to the other part of the series.

AK, AQ: the premium hands that enable you to qualify or the hands that get you out of the game?

In a qualifying tournament, the most important thing to note is that the hands must be played with continually efficient strategies in accordance to the state you are in rather than the strength of the cards.

From the first article in the series, we now understand that to survive safely using an EPT package we must win about 120,000 chips in 270 hands for over five hours.

But how can we do that?

First, Do No Harm

In Italian they say this as "Primo non nocere"

If you have played poker before, you think that the AK is a premium hand. You also think that the same hand is the third-best in poker. According to the present fashion online, AK is quite easy to play: 3-bet, 4-bet, all-in.

Therefore, we end up in a flip. We either double up or we are out of the game. However, to turn our beginning stacks of 3,000 chips into 120,000, isit fair enough to flip a coin using AK orAQ?

The answer is simply NO!

If you want to increase your chances for qualification, do not think about AK as a hand to flip with.

As for me, AK is not a premium hand to qualify with but a destroyer of your dreams.

AK-is it the end of our dreams?

Let us get down to some math to calculate a bit further.

In a flip AK, at the back of 13 pairs-all of 22-AA

Even if you get rid of KK and AA, where AK is an 80% or even 70% underdog, when you want a flip you need to think there is an 8 out of 10 chance that you will be at 47% so that you can win against a very small pair that happens to be 22-QQ.

If we want to gain 120,000 chips from 3,000,we would need to go  3,000,6,000,12,000,24,000,48,000….or win just six flips in one row.

The odds of earning six flops in a row happen to be 1 in 64. This means that we have only 1.5%chance of being in the tournament and a 99% chance we will be kicked out of the game!

In around five hours you will be laying about 270 hands. Therefore, six hands to stay away from,particularly, the ones that will offer you a 50%chance to be out.

You would like to get the hands that offer you the options of winning 3-10 times more than you lose.

You want to go to the flops that can give us the options of winning 10-50 times the chips invested.

A chip that is not lost is better than a chip that is won

Always keep in mind that a chip that is lost is three times better than the chip which is won. A chip that is lost is also good at the beginning levels of a qualifying tournament.

Example, if you multiply your chips by two early from 3,000 to 6,000, you have possibly made your chances of qualifying bigger by around 10%.

However, if you lose your chips maybe from 3000 to zero, you are lowering your chances a great deal.

Your plans will develop according to three factors:

1)    The level of the tournament that is the number of layers who are remaining or the number of seats remaining to be won.

2)    The size of your stack compared to the average size of stack.

3)    The M value. Always remember that you will play two sets per stage. In the first one, M=30 the 15^th level=4800 or even 160 times more.

Therefore, it does not matter what your hand in the first level is, familiarize yourself with your tactics so as to give you no chance to be out of the tournament.

Stay away from flips, or stay away from those that may make you risk more than 33% of your stack.

Get to know how to play the AQ, or the AK with some skill.

Ensure that you forget the online way of plying by clicking the all-in button.

Write down a post-it note and attach it to your screen:

"All in with AK =53% out"

Next to it write another one that supports you:

"I must be in the tournament by 1.30a.m"

This will encourage you to stay in.

The possibility of you qualifying is now high.

By following the two instructions, they may have more than doubled.