Trips - theirs and mine

I am grinding 2NL atm. I am playing under the assumption that the opposition here are fish and will call my bets to their doom, and it is working out quite well.

Now if you will forget about draw situations for the sake of argument, I am a bit worried about the sets. In a situation where I have top pair in the pockets, or top pair top kicker, I will be raising violently to push the villain all in before the river.

This means that every time the opponent hits a set I will loose bigtime. My whole stack perhaps. Every single time. When it happens that I hit a set myself, the opponent might actualy fold and I win a smaller stack. When he has the lesser kicker, he might also fold.

My profit here comes only from the situations where he sticks to his Ax or Kx pair and looses his entire stack to my major kicker. Those situations must give me larger profit than the losing situations I enter.

Do you agree that this is the perspectives of those hands, and do you think it is actually profitable to push this hard on 2NL with top pair top kicker?

If a player cold calls the flop and reraises turn he will nearly always have a monster (at 2nl) keep your preflop raises small, 2.5x bb and your c-bets wil be smaller which leaves your turn bet smaller as well... it is rare for a set to be slow played until the river.. with TPTK you could check the turn and call the river if they bet or thin value bet.. there are many different ways to play it but I dont think you should TRY to stack off with TPTK

imwatcher said:

with TPTK you could check the turn and call the river if they bet or thin value bet.. there are many different ways to play it but I dont think you should TRY to stack off with TPTK

Click to expand...

Hmmm...but my philosophy has been to not let them get to river unless all-in, in order not to give away any cheap straights or flushes.

CistaCista said:

Hmmm...but my philosophy has been to not let them get to river unless all-in, in order not to give away any cheap straights or flushes.

Click to expand...

It depends what type of board it is but I still do not think you should push that hard...top pair is rarely the winning hand in holdem and you have to be able to figure out when it isnt and when it is, figure out which opponents will pay you off with the worse kicker and who wont.. it is fine to give opponents the wrong pot odds to chase but that doesnt need to be huge bets.

imwatcher said:

it is fine to give opponents the wrong pot odds to chase but that doesnt need to be huge bets.

Click to expand...

Well, I have been thinking that if an opponent is willing to call me with a draw, I should just try to get as much in the pot as possible? I.e. get him all in - he has max. 20 % chance of making his draw. Therefore I am pushing all-in on turn when I see a made straight/flush is not possible, and ignoring the possibility of a set unless a pair is on the board.

If I meet resistance it's another story, I will normally fold if someone doubles me up on flop or turn, if I estimate they may have a set.

But I am weary of loosing many of these big pots where I only have TPTK, so please inform me and I will reconsider.

I wish i could figure this out because no matter what I always am in the wrong lol. I will raise to knock them out of cheap straight or flush. Then they have something. I dont raise then they get something cheap...