playing weak top pair with position

[tmcdmck]

this is a very common spot and i am never sure what is best. I call a preflop rasier with something like 78s and the board comes down 862 or something similar. the raiser proceeds to continuation bet. do i call allowing him to outdraw me for free but keeping the pot small? do i raise essentially turning my hand into a bluff, and getting myself into a very hard situation if he decides to semibluff shove? what do people think is best, and what adjustments do you make depending on who the pfr is?

[thrasher789]

Definatly going to matter who the preflop raiser is, his hand range, his levels of aggression, and also anyone to act behind you. Are there obvious flush draws on board? There's definatly some straight draws there if alot of people are in the pot but if it is just you and the original PFR it is obviously much more likely he wiffed the flop with AK-AJ or KQ, which would put you in fine shape but you'd be screwed again'st an overpair. To be honest I think this situation is read dependent in a way, does villain make the same C-bet everytime? If so I'd make a reraise of 3x what he bet and see how he responds (hopefully with a fold) and if he calls I might give up on the turn.

In short I would consider my hand good here again'st most opponents and their ranges, if he had a set he would almost certainly slow play it unless scared of draws, and even an overpair (especially a high one) would probably be more tricky on this flop generally. This situation is very villain dependent but I would not hesitate to put in a strong raise to find out where I am.

[tmcdmck]

Well i suppose it would be best to assume they are not a total donk, and so continuation bet with a high frequency, and with good and whiffed hands alike (and so they would be continuation betting a set). The thing I do not like about the 3x raise is that it really does turn your hand into a bluff, and they will have an overpair/ set often enough to be really able to exploit you.

i agree with you that your hand is usually good, but not good so often that you can be happy commiting a quarter of your stack with it, especially since the play is to fod in the face of further agression!

[thrasher789]

Agreed, I should have commented on stack size I guess as well, you are right, top pair weak kicker is never enough to commit a large portion of your stack for (at least, almost never) especially with all the redraw possibilities if he does call with two overcards or some possible draw. I have to assume at this point the pot is fairly small and not worth risking alot to win so little so I take back alot of my former advice I guess, but I still feel that breaking down an opponent who C-Bets with a wiffed flop is a good play if you have a strong enough read that he probably missed it. I've made said play with complete air a million times playing NL becuase I know that more often than not the villain has two overcards and isn't going to be willing to call a sizeable reraise.

[br.bm]

would you raise a flushdraw or OESD?

[Gonso]

You have to start with preflop action to look at these spots correctly. If you're calling a raiser in LP with 87s, obviously effective stacks should be pretty deep. I don't generally like doing this unless the player is pretty weak, I'll just re-pop or fold.

3-betting pre with this type of hand gives you a little more of an idea as to what's actually going on. If a villian 4-bets you can fold here, or he might fold. If he calls it's a little tricky, but now you can narrow his range down quite a bit.

If you take that sort of line, it becomes a little easier to evaluate your opponent here by what he does. The whole dynamic has now changed... if he has a marginal or missed hand, he's going to have to lead out against the PF 3-bettor OOP and so on. Now instead of you having to make the tougher decisions, you've passed that on to your opponent.