This is by far my biggest leak.

I'm mostly a calling-station on dry boards.

I'm not a complete idiot as, when facing pressure:
I have enough sense to give up on on a wet board, when it's clear I'm beat
I would never call down a bottom or underpair on a flop of Broadway cards

But top-pair on a medium-dry flop like T63r give me the most trouble. Say with QTs I make top-pair decent-kicker on this flop - I'll call villain all the way down if villain's bets are medium/small. But then I'm usually shown an overpair, AT, KT, or a set. And with an ace TPTK I'm often shown an ace 2-pair.

1. Should I make a hard & fast rule to only call down with TPTK AT on T63r (a super-cautious approach)?
OR
2. Admit I have only one street of thin-value with QTs on T63r ..few worse hand would call me (JTs, T9s, 87s, A6s) so check/call, or float a c-bet; then pot-control the turn & river and fold to big pressure if an ace, king, or jack comes?
OR
3. Work on my preflop game to avoid these difficult postflop decisions?

I've not seen much discussion on this very specific topic of "when to give up a hand"; it might be the most difficult part of poker (combo-counting ahead/behind in real-time is a solution, but very difficult ..it wouldn't surprise me if pros do it though).

Thanks.

Don't make hard and fast rules.
Consider villain's position and action sequence, such that you can put him on a range. If your hand beats his range often enough, you should call down. If you're crushed by villain's range, don't call.

If you were the pre-flop agressor, you should probably exercise some pot control with your worst top pairs. In most cases you can triple barrel with TPTK, but not with worse top pairs. Each spot is different though.

If you follow rule #1, you're going to open the door to people taking advantage of you on the flop, and you could potentially be folding a winning hand at least half the time. Just pay attention to your opponent, and their position. I'll usually make a 'small' c-bet here on the flop to represent my hand, but also minimize the amount of potential loss to overpair or being outkicked. Check-call could potentially minimize even more losses, may enable opponent to pump the brakes on the turn if they've got J10 or weaker and allow you to see another free card.

Nothing is fool proof. People bet out of position, people check aces preflop, so sometimes you have to play your hand and not assume theirs. If your opponent is consistent in their betting behaviors it makes things easier.

Just be aware of your own range and play accordingly. Sometimes top pair is a very good hand and much better than you'd normally have and sometimes you have many better hands.

This sounds like one of those "I got owned a few times, therefore it must be bad" threads.

Calling down top pair is seldom bad, unless it's something like A2 on Ak8107 bb v utg.

I'd suggest looking into your database before coming to such conclusions.

As long as you understand range advantages and when to let it go

1.Utg v BB is huge, btn still has a range advantage, but less so due to being able to raise more junk than bb

2.Understanding how many bluff combos they can have, I'll use a recent hand I played, bb v btn in a 3max:

Villain raised, 2.2x and I called w 77
Flop Q103 2 spades, he bets half, I called
Turn 6, he bets 2/3, I call
river 3 bricking flush draw, he bets 3/4, I call

Why? He has at least 32 combos he can easily triple barrel as bluffs in JKo, J9o, if he just triple barrels his sub 9 flush draws, that's 22 combos so up to 54 bluff combos.

His value would be Qjo+ which are 36 combos, Q10s, Q6s, Q3s 41 combos and pocket 3s, 10s and Queens so up to 50 combos.

Now, depending on the player, they might barre ALL of their flush draws which could take them up to nearly 80 bluff combos and even AJo or AKo taking them up to 110+ bluff combos.

AND having a 10 or even Q doesn't make my hand that much better, say Q9o, I still get owned by all his two pairs, sets and better queens or 10j or 109o, great I now cut down his bluff combos by 25%+. 77 in that spot is basically as good as any Queen as he either has a very good queen that would beat most of my queenx or he has a bluff.

This is why it's important to learn combos before starting to play, knowing how many flush draw combos one has, knowing two pair combos on the flop etc etc.

But, basically, it's not really a big issue tbh unless you're overdoing it and overdoing it vs very specific players (12/8/2 types).

It's very important to realize that bluffcatchers are not very profitable hands except against players that bluff much too often. Vs everyone else, your bluffcatchers will range from very unprofitable as a call, slightly unprofitable as a call, breakeven as a call, and slightly profitable as a call.

There are two ways that you can and should expect to win sometimes with bluffcatchers:

Win a checkdown battle(sometimes very strong bluffcatchers can become value hands in checkdown battles).

Catch a bluff.

The river is the most straight forward bluffcatching problem. I look at the bet and ask myself if I beat enough of the betting range to call.

if there's 100 bucks in the pot and my opponent bets $50, I'm getting 3:1, which means I only need to beat 25% of the betting range.

If there's 100 bucks in the pot and my opponent bets $100, I'm getting 2:1, which means I only need to beat 1/3 of my opponents betting range.

----

All that said, if your opponent never bluffs the turn, he has no bluffs on the river and you should fold all bluffcatchers when you have that read.

As far as the GTO goes, you keep mucking a part (half to a pot size bet) of your range as the hand progresses street by street. More if it keeps getting richer, especially if you can have hands there improved also, that then replace much of your previous range.

In theory and practice, a top pair on the river isn't an automatic call; it depends on your range and on your opponent's likely range.

The wet boards that blank later generally speaking contain at least enough bluffs (in GTO any boards).

If you feel it isn't a bluff often enough (or you don't get the feeling it is a bluff often enough; even a GTO player isn't bluffing too often and he is bluffing more often than the opponents on average, counting out the aggro games) then some 50% calling with your range will drop down to 25-0% (still profitable), depending on if you want information or keep the opponents' bluff ranges small. This also allows some extra feel folds more easily later on.

Fold more pre

yes..try a spell of never call pre and see what happens

Go down a stake, and try to learn to bet more often.

If you will call, then consider betting instead. If villains are three barrelling you when you are last to act (you are "in position") consider a raise with your better hands sometimes. If you would *never* consider a raise with a hand, maybe you should be folding that hand. Hands that are unimproved by the river are usually reduced to bluff-catching, and as a previous poster mentioned, bluff-catching is about keeping aggro villains in line with careful application with the goal of break-even versus their bluffs.

on all players have an idea at least of their general tendencies. this way you are the one adjusting to their bets, and will narrow it down to near perfect the more you know about him.
and a 7oad says learn combos. this way you can at least know about where you stand in the hand.