Hi all,

It's my first post on here. Started playing poker a few years ago on PKR and Full Tilt and then took a long break. I started playing again about a month ago and did ok to start with. My profits came from cashing in MTT's, but I'm making a loss at pretty much everything else!

I've tried double up SnGs, 6 max Sngs, Heads Up SnGs and now I'm eventually settling on playing micro stakes cash games (6 max 0.02/0.04 & 0.05/0.10).

It's only now that I realise where most of my losses come from. Basically when I hit top pair on the flop. So I'm holding A Q I raise and get called and the flop comes Q 5 8. I can't get out of my head that I have won the hand. Even when I get check raised I still end up with all my chips in the middle, and the most common thing to happen is that someone will be holding pocket 5's and have me dominated.

When should I know to fold top pair at these low stakes? It's costing me my roll

It is going to generally depend on player tendencies in these spots. If you have history with villain and you notice he overplays top pair like it's the nuts, then you don't mind stacking off here. But if he is someone who will play top pair pretty passively(check/call all streets if you show aggression and only lead if you check the flop and the board runs out safe), then you probably want to fold to the raise or flat in position to see if he plays the turn aggressive as well. Generally speaking, most of the micro players tend to have close to the nuts if they are putting a lot of chips in the pot especially with a check/raise.

If you get raised when you have top pair, you're basically only beating a bluff. Micro stakes players bluff a lot less than other stakes, so you're going to lose most of the time. Folding is nearly always the best move, unless they are a maniac.

This was my biggest leak at one time and is probably the most common leak of beginners.

Most of the time if you face action you should be willing to let go of it. Stats and reads on your opponents will help greatly, for example if you have a villain with an aggression factor of 3.5 and who likes to see a showdown with marginal hands, then top pair is a very good holding. Versus a tighter opponent who knows how to fold you should be able to let go of top pair if they play back at you.

To start with, fold every time they c/r the flop or if they call flop then raise or c/r the turn - fold there too. As you get better, you might find some spots to play back at them in these situations but as a beginner, just take the easy route.

Top pair quite often IS the nuts in micro stakes games, and it can indeed be hard to fold even when someone raises you, because fish often overplay their hands and go nuts with something like QJ on a Q58 flop. Poker is all about adjustments. Typically you should hammer away at people until they give you a reason not to, this includes top pair. Play it like the nuts until they show you they had a better hand, then adjust.

Do you have HEM or PT? It's pretty easy to decipher what flop raises mean from a couple of stats. If villain is fairly loose and aggressive, with VPIP of 25%+ and PFR of 15%+, he'll often be raising flops with any pair or any draw, and sometimes with complete air. If villain is a nitty set-miner with stats like 10/5 or 9/4, he's almost never even semi-bluffing. His flop raise means "I have a set. Please pay me off." Don't pay him off. Just fold TPTK.
You can also add the "raise c-bet" stat to your HUD. If it's lower than 10%, villain usually has 2pr or better. More aggressive villains (Hello Zumby!) will be raising 20% or more of flops. Against those, you can often 3-bet shove your TP if you put them on a draw, or you can flat call and let them spew more chips on blank turns.

When I started out (and I've still played less than 10k hands), I didn't over value TPTK and I'd often fold to shows of strength, after all it's only a pair.

After doing more reading, such as fishy villains will stack off with any pair, TPTK is often the best hand, stationy fish will bet the river with busted draws, etc. I have played TPTK, TP2K and TPGK hands much stronger and have spewed a lot of money away against flopped sets, overpairs, etc.

So I would be very careful following this advice until you are confident in your game.

10k hands stud? play zoom and do that in a day. maybe 2 if you take it easy.