Hand 17. How to Play Top Pair Top Kicker – Hero IP/With Lead/Dry Board

How Should You Play Top Pair/Top Kicker at Microstakes when You are In Position with the Lead in the Hand?

You have 2 main goals when playing top pair against tight players and loose-passive players.

Firstly, you want to extract money from your opponent. Secondly, you want to avoid paying too much when your top pair is beaten.

The line that you take should depend on the playing style of your opponent.  In this article, I will be looking at how to play top pair, when you have the lead and are in position and the flop is dry.

In the current hand, hero raised from the button with A♣K♦.  The small blind (SB) folded and a player in the big blind (BB) called.  Therefore, 2 players saw the flop, which came up K♥8♦2♠. 

I will look at how you would play this hand against:

1. Tight microstakes regulars

2. Loose-passive players.

I will look at the following 2 situations on the Flop:

1.  Villain Donk Bets

2.  Villain Checks to the Pre-flop Raiser 

Hero is in Position/With Lead/Dry board

1. Villain Donk Bets (Big)

A big donk bet from a passive villain on a dry board usually means your opponent has at least 2 pair.  Consequently, you should fold. 

2. Villain Donk Bets (Small)

As mentioned in my article The Small Donk Bet is an Exploitative Strategy that the Poker Gurus Tried to Keep Secret, a small donk bet on a dry board usually means that villain has a caught a small piece of the board or that he has caught a monster hand and is trying to trick you into raising. 

To find out the truth, I like the min-raise.  If villain re-raises, you know that he has a stronger hand than top pair. 

Against passive players, a weak action followed by a strong action equals strength.

The min-raise gets weaker hands to call a bet and loses less to strong hands. 

If villain calls the min-raise, we still can’t be sure that he has a weak hand.  As this is a dry board, a slowplaying villain wouldn’t be afraid of the turn card.  However, if turn card puts a draw on the board, he may be afraid of the river card. 

Therefore, if villain fires a big bet on the turn, we know that we should fold. 

However, if he checks on the turn, he is still representing a weak made hand.  This means that he doesn’t have a king.

If he doesn’t have a king, it probably means that he has a showdown value hand (ie a pocket pair below the top card and above the middle card on the flop). 

If villain is scared of a big bet we need to accommodate his needs by betting small.  We don’t want him to fold a weaker hand. 

There are 2 lines that we can take. 

The first line is to bet small on the turn and the river.  Therefore, our bets are both thin value bets.

The second line is to check back the turn and bet big on the river.  The story that we are trying to present here is:

Our min-raise on the flop was an attempt to bluff the pot because villain bet small. 

We checked on the turn because we have given up on the pot.

Then, we bet on the river as a final bluff because villain checked twice.

Both lines are fine.  I would be more likely to use 2 thin value bets against tight players.  They are more likely to be scared of a big bet on the river. 

However, loose-passive players tend to be more suspicious about bluffs.  If your opponent bluffs rivers himself, he will be more suspicious that a bet on the river, after checking the turn, is a bluff.  In addition, they don’t like folding on the river either.  Therefore, I would probably use the second line more often against a loose passive player.

Obviously, if villain shows strength at any point in the hand, he has either been patient or caught one of his outs on the river.  Therefore, you would have to fold.

3. Villain Checks

When villain checks, you should play this differently.  How we play this hand differs between playing a tight player and a loose-passive player.  I will look at how to play the hand against a tight player first.

Villain is Tight

When you hit top pair top kicker on a dry board and you are playing against a tight player, you can only expect 2 streets of value from a weaker hand.  The range, you should target, is weaker kings and pairs between a king and an 8. 

If you are going for 2 streets of value, you have 3 main choices

• Bet flop and turn
• Bet flop and river
• Bet turn and river

Each of these strategies tells villain a different story.  We will examine each of these. 

Bet Flop and Turn

When you bet flop and turn, you are representing top pair at least.  As villain is a tight player, he knows that this line could represent an attempt to bully him off his pocket pair below top pair.  Even if villain knows this, he will probably fold to a turn bet.  Therefore, this is not the ideal.  We would like to get more than one bet out of villain’s showdown value hands.

Bet Flop and River

The story here is that you took a stab at the pot on the flop.  You checked the turn because you’ve either missed the flop or you have a weak hand.  You decided to take one more stab at the pot on the river because villain has checked twice.

Bet Turn and River

When you bet the turn and river, your story is that you have a weak hand or an air hand.  You checked back the flop and waited to see what villain did on the turn.  When villain checks the turn, he has checked twice.  Therefore, you believe that villain has a weak hand, which leads you to try to barrel him off his hand.

Against a tight player, I prefer to bet the flop and river.  I think it is more convincing to most players that you missed the flop and you are taking a stab at the pot on the river.  This strategy can get messed up if the board cards become scary.  However, you can put a thin value bet in on the river if this happens.

Alternatively, you could bet ¾ pot on the flop and thin value bet ¼ of the pot on the turn and river.  Villain won’t raise these bets as a bluff.  When he has a showdown value hand, he just wants to get to showdown cheaply.  You just have to be aware that a tight player will only pay you the equivalent of 2 bets if he has a pair below top pair.

Villain is Loose-Passive

I will assume that this villain enters the pot with 30% of hands.  The range is probably wider than this, especially as he has called from the BB.

This means that villain will have a lot of junk in his range that can’t call a bet. 

Barrelling Flop, Turn and River

The usual strategy against a loose-passive villain is to bet ¾ pot on the flop, turn and river.  These bets are all bet-folds.  This means that., if villain raises any of your bets, you should fold.  The assumption is that, a raise from a passive player, means that he has 2 pair or better.

The rationale for going for 3 streets of value is that, when villain calls on the flop, he will have a lot of Kx in his range (see Range 1).  These will have weaker kickers than our hand because we have AK.

Range 1:  Villain’s Calling Range when He Enters the Pot with 30% of Combos

An alternative to betting ¾ of the pot on all 3 post-flop streets, is to bet ¾ pot on the flop, ½ pot on the turn and ¾ pot on the river.  If you bet ½ pot on the turn, villain should raise this if he is ahead.  He will want to get the money in when he has 2 pair or better.

However, if you bet ¾ of the pot on the turn, villain will feel that you like your hand.  Therefore, he will have more incentive to wait until the river to raise.

By betting slightly smaller on the turn, you will have a slightly smaller pot when you win.  However, you might be able to get away from your hand one street earlier when you are beaten.

Check Flop, Bet or Raise Turn, Bet River

The problem is that villain folds 69.4% of combos to a flop bet.  It would be nice to get paid by these combos.  If villain has a wider pre-flop calling range, he will miss the flop even more than 69.4%. 

Many poker players bet just because you checked.   Therefore, if we check back the flop, we may get a bet from villain’s whole range. 

So, the betting line is:

This line does not miss out on value from villain’s Kx range.  If he has Kx, he will bet on the turn.  If we barrel all 2 post-flop streets, we get 3 bets from villain’s Kx range.  If we raise his turn bet and bet the river, we still get the equivalent of 3 bets.  Therefore, this line loses nothing against Kx and potentially gains against villain’s flop folding range.

In addition, the turn card may turn villain’s unpaired hand on the flop into a paired hand.  For example, if villain has QJ, he wouldn’t have a pair on the flop.  However, if the turn card is a Q or a J, he will have a pair.  Because we didn’t bet on the flop, villain might think that his hand is winning.

Conclusion

Playing top pair may seem like an easy hand to play.  However, there are several ways that the hand can be played.  How you play the hand should depend on the type of player that you are up against.

Top pair top kicker is the bread and butter hand of poker.  Therefore, it is worth spending time studying the different betting lines that you can use.