Top pair and all that it blooooooooooooooooooooows in this game.......

[Cell40k]

Because I hear this comes up alot... it boils down to really knowing your player, and in the internet world you can never know anyone good enough to decide this. You raise preflop, get one caller, and flop top pair top kicker. You are first to act, you bet 2/3 the pot and are called. The turn brings a blank, and you suspect your opponent either has a draw or has a lock on the hand. Some people advocate checking the turn here with just a one pair hand for pot control. let's assume you do this. The river brings a blank (after he checks behind), and you fire another 2/3 pot bet, only to be raised.

WHOOPS....you don't know whether he had that lock from the flop, or if he's just assuming you're weak since you checked the turn and is making a big bluff....either way your chances of making a mistake are pretty high.

And you could also give him the free card that beats you by checking the turn.....so what else can you do, other than just fire incrementally larger bets the whole way?

I hate this game b/c of this situation alone -_-

[Pussy Galore]

in the internet world u can surly know your player.get pahud

[Vkk]

Depends...

The situation you described looks for ex. like a beginning player slowplaying a set or something. You should check the board aswell, if he called you with a draw than you have to consider if that turn/river card could've made his draw. If that's so, fold for sure. If that's not... Well, tptk has always been, and will always be, a problematic situation. You should fold here. Remember that, let's say you hold AK and an A on flop, other beginning players might aswell played Arag and hit two pair or something... Offcourse this is prety hypothetical, just some random thoughts that say: fold!

[RyverRat]

This would be player dependant. As mentioned above PAHud alongside Pokertracker would give you an instant picture of tight/loose/passive/aggressive / aggression by streets + notes on the player i.e. do they fire when missed draws, do they never bluff etc..

This is also the power of playing in position...

To me without history this is a fold.

[Papi Shasho]

LOL, show me a clip anywhere of someone folding TPTK (high pair of course, not like top pair being 6 or something) on a non-dangerous board.

EDIT: and being RIGHT.

[Rek]

Who said this game was easy? You have an incomplete set of information and the art is to try and determine what your opponent has and bet appropriately. You can't be correct all the time and TPTK is still only a pair not the nuts.

Pot control is an art but there are no magic tricks to ensure you will always be right. I can't really say from your example what is correct. You really need to post hands where you have been caught out so we can see all information necessary to give a proper response to a particular set of circumstances.

[ATM]

I came up on this situation the other day with ace queen in a 6 max $0.05/$0.10 game. I raised on the button with
A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
SB flat called and BB flat called Both had around $10 I had $15.50. Flop comes
A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
SB checks, BB checks, I bet $0.80, SB flat calls, BB folds
Turn comes 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
SB checks I bet $1.50, SB re raises to $3
I didnt know what to do here so I just flat called and then he bet $2 on a blank river and I called again. SB shows a set of jacks. I figured the guy for a pretty big hand because he hadnt played in the last 30-40 mins. I seem to overplay TPTK as well which is a pretty big leak. Anyone got any thoughts on how to stop overplaying this kind of hand?

[Small Fry]

Knowing your opponent can be a big help here. And you did excercise pot control. For example: lets just say blinds are 1/2 and you made a preflop raise of 7. With the one caller (blinds folded) the pot is 17. Flop you bet 12 he calls. Pot is now 41. If the turn gets checked the pot on the river is still 41. But if you throw out a 1/2 pot bet on the turn and get called the pot on the river will be 81. This will cause any bets on the river to be much larger.

A few more points for you. I would very rarely fire a 2/3 size bet on the river with only TPTK. This is very opponent dependent, but think about it. What will he call this large of a bet with. Going back to my example the pot was 41 and you fire out 27. Its a great value bet if you feel your opponent will call with TPWK or second pair, but if he'll fold these then all he's calling with is hands that beat you. And if he's tricky and reads your check as weakness he might raise to pressure you. IMO the one good thing about your large sized river bet is that if a player wants to raise you they'll need to put in a decent amount of money so it discourages thes bluff, so in my experience they have a pretty good handin this situation. What I think is a real good option (again very opponent dependent) is to check again on the river to induce a bluff or a weak value type bet that you can easily call. Pot was 41 so opponent might bet anywear from 15-30 but you can definitely call this bet.

On goal in NL to keep in mind is to try to keep your decisions as simple and easy as possible. Betting the river oop with TPTK and getting raised complicates matters.

Good Luck