The longish story on flopping top pair with a good kicker.

Recently I saw a posted hand exemplifying the poster's difficulty with responding to check-raises with top pair, good kicker hands like KQ. I instantly saw the connection with an old hand of mine from the "lost databases".

The last real AHA! moment I had as a player was against a straightforward, weakish TAG at $1NL. I raised with QQ in the CO and he called in the SB. The flop came something like Th6d4h. He checked, I led out for the pot, and he minraised. Without much thought, I flat-called. The turn brought a 7s and the villain bet again.

At this moment, I looked at the bet and saw I was committed to showdown if I called. I looked at the villain's stats, saw that he almost always folded to continuation bets, almost never defended his blind, and played for pot control on the turn most of the time.

Instantly- like a bolt of lightning- this came to me: I should have folded on the flop. There was just no reason to continue in this hand. Moreover, the turn bet made it 100% certain the villain either hit his set or had a pair bigger than mine. But the only worse hand he had on the flop was JJ and I would have to call at least two bets to see a showdown against that range- I'm not sure he wouldn't check-call AA on many turns.

As trivial as it might seem, this was a watershed moment for me- and I am a worse poker player now than I was then. I could suddenly interpret an opponents actions well enough to fold an overpair to the board on the flop even when it was fairly benign.

Of course, TPGK on a semi-coordinated board is another thing entirely. But, like the decision above, the entire hand comes down to your opponents hand range once he calls your raise preflop and his postflop style.

And indeed, the texture of my decision making with those hands transformed after my AHA! moment. Suddenly, many more lines were available to me. For example, if a villain is very tight preflop and very aggressive with his made hands and draws on the flop but fit or fold otherwise, it's tough to get value from him without a monster on a semi-wet board. This might be a spot to take a card and try to induce action. There's not a lot of turn cards that move you off of TPSK, after all.

... I could do this for a ton of styles and hand ranges, but it really comes down to this: the better a player is, the harder it is to play TPGK against him, even in position. The reality is that you have to have more data to play it well and even then, it's a volatile spot.

With no read, it's just marginal. That's not to say it's not worth thinking about, but I think it is something that a good player must accept.T he nature of no limit can sometimes make TPGK tough to play in NLH, even when you have position. the more exact your read and the more experience you have in that spot, the better it works out for you. But it's still only picking up a few bucks here and there.