On a dry board with an AA-QQ overpair or ace TPTK, how does one avoid being beaten by a set? This a huge weakness for me.

The only hint is villain will 'stay with you' to the river and his turn/river bet is usually large.

So do I fold aces to a large river bet on a dry board, as I'm often facing a set??

I guess any one-pair is a 'weak' hand and should be downgraded in its strength.

You can't answer a question like this without a whole ton more of information. Stuff like;

Online or live?
Game format
Stakes?
Villain (or population) reads/tendencies
3bet pot y/n?
IP/OOP?

Assuming online/micros or low stakes live (ie assuming a fishy population) villains will come with you to the river with worse hands than sets, for example

you are oop with AA on a rainbow KT842 runout

A spazzy reg, or a fish, with easily get to the river with Kx and if you x the river to them they will spazz bet it, esp in a three bet pot.

tl/dr...question is waaayyyy to general.

One of the toughest spots in all of poker. IMO it really just comes down to player profile and ABC poker.

If you have history against an opponent you should know a little about their tendencies, especially their range. Why are they sticking around? Do they doubt your range?

The 'best' advice? You have (only) one pair ... how often is 'one pair' good with 'X' amount of action? GL

Unless you're really deep stacked, you don't.

Yeah if you're playing for <50bb you lose it all.

If you're playing for > 200bb you have to be willing to fold a loss of 50bb to avoid a loss of 200bb.

Not going broke with 1 pair post flop is a skill you will develop.

Usually, in these cases, I will check back the turn to play for pot control in a competitive tournament. In a donkament or online micro, I will bet all streets for value, and if I lose to a set, I lose to a set.

If you are in a situation where players overvalue their TPTK, you may not be able to distinguish a set from top pair, and you may end up just having to accept losing to the occasional set. In those cases, if you suspect a set too often, you leave way too much value on the table

As a thought process, I would look at an overpair/TPTK type hand as a 40bb hand. If I have to put in more than 40 of my own chips..... I have to be convinced I am going to win. Less and it is likely villain had nothing or a good reg that doesn't overcommit on a draw or weak hand v me.

*Just my own guideline....I think it was a bit more involved, but I haven't played online since BF.

One pair hands either win a small pot or lose a big one. It took me a long time to realize that this is true more often than not. As a general rule of thumb it will save you a lot of money to keep that in mind.

Premium pairs are also often beaten by two pair as well as sets. Big bets by Vs late in a hand are seldom bluffs at lower stakes tables. Personally i would rather be bluffed off a winner for a small pot from time to time than lose a load of chips often to these situations.

Something else to look at is giving the wrong payoff to villain the times he does make a set. If a set appears on the flop 1/8 of the time villan plays a pocket pair he would need to make 8 times his preflop call to break even. By using pot control or folding to a raise that goes above this thresh hold you can try to make villans preflop call incorrect even if he does hit.

This is obviously just a base line though. Opponents can quickly figure out that all they have to do to get you to fold any top pair is bet big. You also become predictable if you always play too much pot control with only top pair. Knowing your opponents tendencies, what they call with, how they play big hands, how often they bluff also plays a big part.

*****
This makes me sad and BF still pisses me off. I’m glad I got into online poker and found this sight a few years before BF. I don’t think I would be playing today had I not.

I moved 3 years ago to one of the few states (WA) where it is a felony to play online poker.

as others have said it depends as it always does in poker on your opponent action on all streets preflop action tabvle dynamaics history etc and stack sizes

but dont know if this helps much but against good/not clueless opponents bet it like you would a top pair dont always play for stacks if a fish just go ham and get it in and if they happen to have a good hand so what the likilihood of it when/if they play a too wide range is not often, but with others yh pot control it and maybe even check call a street like say you 3bet and get called size your bet appropriately on the flop and turn depending on the board texture and what range you think there on, on turn if your in position and they check it to you after calling maybe check it back then value bet the river appropriately on a safe card and bluff catch a raise size dependant, but try define their range and what there calling with to begin with, i dont know hope that helps some what if you get what im saying pot control it like any other top pair particularly if your opponents tricky or not straight forward, some opponents dont slow play ****, also if you got a big pair and say the tables tight so lots of pots go and play heads up you dont always need to 3bet it being serious (think sometimes 3betting pre puts some people in committed mindframe even when their bluffing if has done me in past and also ive had people bet 3bet ak then barrel 3streets for stacks with there ak regardless of the board texture) if you got position on the individual occasionally just flat it as you already have position (and i actually think it can help you get more value occasionally as it makes it harder for them to put you on a hand if your sometimes 3betting sometimes flatting premium pocket pairs, if out of position id raise though as you want to have initiative going to the flop also if fair few callers and looking to be a multiway flop again raise that **** up pot raise too you dont want to bloat it then still be going multiway to the flop, also yh other than sets just dont get stupid sticky with overpairs sometimes just gotta muck em and wait for a spot your more sure of where the **** you are in the hand its my little default rule from now on if it dont feel right i fold (i know your not meant to go off gut feelings but its more err memory recall/pattern recognition of similar spots in the past and if the frequency/precentage of the time of me being ****ed/behind against that sort of opponent is too high it can be better to just fold conserve some chips maybe fold the best hand sometimes but still come out ahead overall (thinking lingterm after all as its a longterm game poker after all) anyway thats my possibly incoherent ramblings on it from my personal experiences getting stacked against sets.
short answer fish just play for stacks within reason
thinking player sometime play for stacks sometimes control the pot/action
good luck out there unless on my table of course.

i like rate this idea too, making the opponent still make a mistake

Agreed. I overlooked stack sizes when I asked the question (a most important factor; e.g., early vs. late stages of a tournament).

I like this: always keep in mind the option of denying villain his immediate or implied odds through pot control or folding when he exhibits "excessive" strength (e.g., deep-stacked vs. a normally passive player). But as you mention, very exploitable by observant opponents.

Lets think about it the other way round. For example most of my bigger pots or all ins, have come from me set mining, hitting my set and getting paid, mostly by aggros or fish or have hit their ace or king. So we can only safely assume we will be paying out sometimes when it happens to us, difference is, as people have mentioned already if you have TPTK, and get calls/re raise etc, then pot control is the key.

But overall, i'd say if we put winning with sets and losing to sets in a total PNL, it would be in the positive.

It helps to remember the hand ranks. People think AA and KK are "special" hands, like they have some magical strength that transcend their hand rank. Unfortunately they don't. Hand rank always comes first, your specific hand within the hand rank comes second. Hand rank in this case being "Pair".

It's not just a set. It's also very easy to lose to 2 pair.

It also helps to remember that in general, the bigger the hand rank, the bigger the pot you can win with it. In other words, don't let the pot get too big if you only have 1 pair. (Obviously talking about postfop.)