Yeah we have The Top Pair, time to go to Sizzler!!!!
Playing TPTK correctly in NL hold’em, has one of the largest impacts on our winrates and can be one of the trickiest spots to be in. Back in the poker boom, it was easy; it was ALL ABOUT FAT Value. Hence we have a lot of residual strategy left over from that era, “Pot, Pot, Shove” is probably the most popular. Why was this popular advice? Well mainly because it was the best advice for most situations for the time. Most of the time with TPTK we wanted to extract the most money from the payoff monkies, and the few times we were beat (or really misplayed it with this advice), was in the noise as far as impact to our winrate. Fortunately for us that like a challenge, our villains are smarter, and now we have to think about how to play a hand.
As always poker is about the villains range against our perceived range and showdown value. So let’s look at different situations where we have TPTK with AJo on a Jxxxx board.
We are going to look at several areas in reverse order of importance (based on SammyG opinion), and see how they affect our actions.
1. Betting Action
2. Position
3. Board Texture
4. Villain Stats/Reads
Villain’s Stats/Reads:
Some people will argue this is the most important area to look at and while it is super important, I believe one can actually be a decent winner at the uNL ignoring stats almost completely and only looking at Betting Action, Position and Board Textures. Those three are absolute truths, and Stats/Reads are interpretation of incomplete information. Too often I see players misplay a hand because they put way too much emphasis on item #4 while if they look at 1-3 the hand was evident. So let’s start with two types of opponents, the typical semi-fish who preflop stats look like 27/6/1 and the semi-good 2p2 reg who looks like 14/9/2.
The fish has a fcbet of 33% and goes to showdown 47% of the time. The reg has a fcbet of 55% and goes to showdown 30% of the time. For this example we will be in the CO, and the villain is in the BB. Effective stacks are 100BB.
Our hold Cards are A
J
Flop comes J
7
2
Pot is
9BB
BB checks
Here we have TPTK on a dry board against two different types of villains. Against a fish this is an automatic cbet, because we like money and they are a calling station on the flop
Against the reg, there are many things we can do depending on what we think of the villain. We can cbet since they float a lot, but OOP they probably don’t float a ton. The board is dry so there is not a ton for them to rep, so if they did c/r this flop, I don’t feel bad about getting it in. We have equity lock, so checking behind is not bad, but we may be turning a hand that has good showdown value now, into a bluff later. Based on all these factors, I prefer betting here and opening up his calling range on later streets depending on the board. Get value while we probably have the best hand.
Hero bets 7BB, Villain calls.
Pot is 23BB.
Turn is a 6
BB checks
Against the fish, this is a great card, as it didn’t scare him away too much, and may have even given him some weird draw. Betting here is the way to go and we should bet just around 60%. Against the reg, while it doesn’t really hit our range so there is not a scare card we can get value from them playing hero. Basically we are repping TPTK+. I prefer to check here and open up their calling range on the river.
Against the fish we bet 14BB, we check against the reg. Fish calls
Pot (fish) is 51BB, Pot (reg) is 23bb. BB checks
River is a 3
pretty much another brick around. The fish has gone this far, but far are the days that he will call a shove on the river automatically. I would put him on a medium strength hand, and would give him every reason to call, I would probably bet 25BB.
The reg check here, looking for pot control. Action dictates they like their hand and are trying to get to showdown cheaply. If they had a more polarized range they would have had active involvement somewhere along the line. Now the question is how much do we respect the reg. Bet/Check/Bet by us is a classic value line, but classic lines are classics because they are affective. We could bet half the pot, but that could give the villain a chance to turn their hand into a bluff and take us off the best hand. We could make our hand look bluffy, by betting close to the pot, but we will be close to pot committed if they shove. Without any super reads/dynamics I like to bet about 65% of the pot here, which gives the villain the right odds to call most of our bluffs with weak hands. There are villains I will pot here, or bet 1/3 of the pot and call a raise.
Board Texture:
For the next set of hands we are going to assume that villain is unkown player. I like to assume unknowns play ABC, call too much but don’t stack off less than an Overpair.
Again we are in position, and villain is in the BB.
First hand
Our hold Cards are A
J
Flop comes J
7
2
Pot is 9BB.
BB checks
Fairly dry board, Jack hits a lot of villains range, plus since villains always put AK in our hand they will peel one off. I am probably looking at getting two bets of value, and not looking at getting my stack in against an uknown. I say bet between 6-8BB.
Hero bets 7BB, Villain calls.
Pot is 23BB.
Turn is a 6
BB checks.
Board is still dry, but if we bet here we can threaten stacks, Since I don’t put any draws in his hand, I don’t want to put villain in a tough spot. I can check here, and make him think I missed AK and either peel off a bet on the river, or bet thin value
Villain Checks.
River is a 2
BB checks.
Pot is 23BB.
A complete brick. This is a classic value line we are taking, but the classics are good when we are playing against a level 1 to 1.5 thinker. I say bet 12-15BB and collect the profits.
Wetish boards:
Wetish boards are good against unknowns for value, since villains will chase a lot of draws and call way to wide.
Same position as above
Our hold Cards are A
J
Flop Comes J
8
6
Pot is 9BB
BB checks
Fairly good board to get value from against an unknown. If he has us beat he will let us know right away (play is different as we move up in higher level thinking). The Ace or King flush draw is not on the board, so there are a lot of flush combos in his hand. Plus there are a few straight draws. I like to bet for value and since his hand is stickier, I can bet bigger.
Hero bets 8BB, BB calls
Pot is 26BB
Turn is a 4
BB checks
A good card as a few more draws are picked up but nothing is likely to complete. Again we can bet for value.
Hero bets 19BB, BB Calls
Pot is 64BB
River is a 8
No draws complete, so if we are going to get value its from a stubborn pair, or a weaker Jack. If villain led into us, I probably would call most river bets as it looks like a busted draw. If he had a stronger hand there would be some action on the Flop/Turn. I say go for some good value and bet 22BB.
Position:
Position is important because they effect ranges, both ours and there:
Let’s take an above hand where villain is in the BB, and move him to UTG+1, and we are UTG. Now we are giving up position, but also very importantly our perceive ranges and their continuation ranges are much tighter. We don’t want to overplay our hands here
Hero is UTG with A
J
(let’s not discuss if AJo is a hand we should play UTG)
Hero bets 4BB, UTG+1 calls. The rest folds
Pot is 9BB
Flop comes J
7
2
Not a lot of hands that will continue with us that we beat. We probably can collect 1 bet if villain thinks we are auto cbetting here, but two bets would be overrepping our hands against an unknown.
I would probably b/f against most villains on the flop and turn. Since we do have an equity lock, I prefer to bet now and then see if we can get more money on later streets if we hit two pair from someone floating us. Even if we did hit two pair, I don’t want to put a lot of my stack in the middle. I would bet fold for 5BB here.
Betting action:
Betting action is important to notice because it is always there. ABC/unknowns usually their bets tell us the conversation of their hands.
If we take the above hand and make it:
Hero is UTG with A
J
H
ero bets 4BB, UTG+1, raises to 12BB, Hero calls:
Pot is 26BB
Flop comes J
7
2
Hero bets 18BB, UTG raises to 40BB…We probably can’t be happy with our hand.
But if we change it up to:
Hero is UTG with A
J
Hero bets 4BB, BB calls
Pot is 9BB
Flop comes J
7
2
BB checks,
Hero bets 6BB, BB calls,
we probably feel good about getting value and may bet three streets, and depending on the texture of the board we can make adjustments along the way.
But even if we leave the board and bet size the same and change up who does the betting to:
Pot is 9BB
Flop comes J
7
2 diamond:
BB bets 7BB, Hero calls
Pot is 23BB
Turn is 3
BB bets 18BB, Hero calls
Pot is 59BB
River is a 2
BB bets 33BB….I am not liking TPTK right now at all.
TL/DR.
Two Plus Two
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