Top pair strategy

In the nine years I’ve been playing poker, I have had my fair share of epiphanies – moments of realisation in which I felt I finally understood a key concept. At least a couple of those have involved top pair in no-limit hold’em.

Playing top pair demands attention to a great many factors, and adjusting well to those factors can have a significant impact on your results. I’ ll be demonstrating how the stakes of the game and the skill levels of the other players can have a massive bearing on your decision-making.

In this quiz we’ ll work through some tricky situations involving a flopped top pair, including complications such as a paired flop and a highly textured flop, as well as looking at the always tempting scenario of hitting top pair on a small flop. Good luck.

SCENARIO 1 THE PAIRED FLOP

Q1 You are playing in a full-ring $0.10/$0.20 no-limit hold’em game online, and you’re dealt A?-J? in middle position. Your stack is $20. There are two limpers before the action reaches you, and you make it $1.50. The button, both blinds, and both limpers call, making the pot $9. The flop comes J?-8?-8?. The small blind checks, the big blind bets $2, and both limpers call, making the pot $15. What should you do?

A) FOLD

B) CALL $2

C) RAISE TO $10

D) RAISE ALL-IN FOR $18.50

ANALYSIS

Strictly speaking, it’s not the stakes of the game that matter, but the type of player that populates it. Nonetheless, the type of player you will typically find in an online $0.10/$0.20 game is loose, passive and very weak. Against this type of player, top pair/top kicker is a gold mine.

Your opponents will be playing lots of weaker hands, and will throw away their money faster than a drunk businessman in a strip club. Expect to be called by small pairs, gutshot draws, overcards, weaker Jacks and more.

Folding is out of the question, and calling is a poor choice because you won’t be extracting value from the weaker hands you expect your opponents to hold (and you’ll be giving them a free card to hit whatever they might be drawing to).

The only question is how much to raise. If you bet $10, it should be on the condition that you will call a re-raise, or move all-in when the turn comes, regardless of what it is.

A: My personal preference is simply to move all-in now and remove any further decision-making from the equation.

Q2 This time, you’re playing $1/$2with a $200 stack. It’s folded to you pre-flop, so you make it $6 with your A?-J? and the button and the big blind call. The flop comes the same J?-8?-8?, and the big blind bets $15. You raise to $45, and the button pushes all-in for $200. The big blind calls. What should you do?

A) FOLD

B) CALL

ANALYSIS

This situation is vastly different from the previous one, despite your hand and the flop being exactly the same. Online $1/$2 games are a lot tighter than $0.10/$0.20 games, and the typical opponent at $1/$2 is much more knowledgeable. What’s more, the pot was smaller pre-flop because not so many people limped in.

A: You should fold. There is not a chance that your top pair is good here – you’re up against at least an 8 and possibly a made full house. Don’t go broke in a small pot with a small hand.

SCENARIO 2 THE WET FLOP

Q You’re playing a $0.50/$1 game andhave $100 in your stack. You raise to $4 in early position holding A?-Q?, and the button and small blind call, making the pot $13. The flop is Q?-J?-10?, giving you top pair/top kicker. The small blind checks, you bet $10, the button makes it $30, and the small blind reluctantly folds. What should you do?

A) FOLD

B) CALL $30

C) RAISE ALL-IN

ANALYSIS

You’ll often hear hold’em and Omaha players talking about the ‘texture of the flop’. In other words, how likely is the flop to have hit your opponent, and in what way? A ‘dry’ flop would be something like Q?-7?-2?, which has no obvious draws and only one high card. If you’d hit top pair on that flop, you’d feel quite secure in your hand and might even consider slow-playing if you thought your opponent had probably missed.

This flop, however, is not dry – it’s very draw-heavy. It’s possible that somebody already has two pair, trips or a straight, or that somebody has a flush draw/straight draw combination, and you’re not happy to be up against any of those hands. On the other hand, if your opponent is aggressive, they could simply be raising with a draw in the hope that you’ll fold. For all of these reasons, calling is not an option.

Your hand isn’t strong enough to slow-play, and you don’t want to give any free cards away if you’re ahead. If you’re behind, you don’t want to put any more money into the pot because it’s unlikely you’ll catch up. Plus, if you just call, you’re in the same miserable situation all over again on the turn. What are you going to do – check?

Whether you raise or fold depends on what you know about the player on the button. If he is the sort of player to make the straightforward play and raise when he has two pair, trips or a straight, but flat-call when he is drawing, then you should clearly fold. However, if he is the sort of overly tricky player (also common at these limits) to raise with his flush draws but slow-play his made hands, you should absolutely push all-in.

A: Against an unknown opponent, I would tend to fold in this situation. It seems like a weak thing to do, but it’s also the most logical course of action when you consider the two likely possibilities: a) You have the best hand, but you’re not a dominant favourite because your opponent has a good draw, and b) you have the worst hand, and you have almost no chance to draw out.

This is a really tough decision, and it’s made much easier if you know your opponent’s tendencies. Make sure you’re paying attention!

SCENARIO 3 THE SMALL FLOP

Q You’re playing in a six-handed $1/$2game. This time you look down at A?-8? on the button, and call an aggressive player’s middle-position raise to $6. Both blinds fold, so it’s heads-up to the flop, which comes 8?-4?-2?, once again giving you top pair/top kicker. Your opponent bets $8 into the $15 pot. What should you do?

A) FOLD

B) CALL $8

C) RAISE TO $20

D) RAISE ALL-IN FOR $194

ANALYSIS

Top pair on a low flop like this, against a continuation bet from an aggressive opponent, is very likely the best hand, so it would be a mistake to fold. However, it’s much more vulnerable than if you had flopped top pair on a higher flop, for example A-K on a flop of K-8-3. In the latter case, there are no overcards that can come on the turn or river that make you feel uncomfortable.

On the low flop though, a scary card will arrive on the turn nearly half the time, and if your opponent has two overcards like K-Q, there are six cards in the deck that will give him the best hand. T

he problem with just calling is that you don’t want to give your opponent a free chance to catch up, and you’ll be in a tough spot on the turn a good percentage of the time. I like to play in such a way that I have as few difficult decisions as possible, because difficult decisions equal mistakes, and mistakes equal less profit.

Calling could be the best play if you have an excellent read on your opponent and know he will bluff again on the turn and the river, but against a typical opponent this is not the sort of hand you want to slow-play.

Raising all-in isn’t smart in this situation. Your opponent will fold all hands that are beaten by yours, and call with most hands that are beating yours. Clearly, that isn’t a profitable investment.

Small raises are great in situations like this because they allow you to gather reliable information about your opponents’ holdings at a relatively cheap price, while putting the pressure back on them and forcing them to fold hands that might have outdrawn you. Making lots of small raises can also give you the image of a loose- aggressive player when actually you are risking very little.

A: In this case, the raise to $20 or so is probably the best play. If you are re-raised all-in then you face another tough decision, but a fold is the far more likely outcome.

SUMMARY

Top pair can be a tough hand to play when the stacks are relatively deep, and it can be hard to know when to apply pressure to your opponents and when to back off. As ever, knowledge of your opponents’ tendencies is key. I hope this quiz has given you some things to think about!