S06E15 - Playing TPTK OOP - Low Stakes Poker

Today we are discussing how to play top pair top kicker out of position.

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In no-limit hold’em, navigating a **top pair hand out of position (OOP)** on the flop with **two opponents in position** requires balancing aggression, protection, and pot control. The strategy hinges on **flop texture**, opponent tendencies, stack depths, and prior action. Below is a detailed breakdown of when to bet, check, check-raise, or bet-fold:

1. Flop Texture
✅Dry Flops (e.g., K♦ 3♠ 2♥ – no draws, low connectivity)
-Bet 25%-33% pot .
-Dry board means they don’t have draws to continue
-They mostly have nothing or worse Kx

🚩Medium Flops (e.g., **Q♣ 9♦ 4♣** several draws)
-Bet 50% pot for value and protection.
There are several draws. Open ended straight, gutshot straigh, and flush draws. With two opponents it’s fair that can have fair equity. Several turns make it dicey. We need to get value and charge those hands.

Options
Check-Raise?
-Against aggressive opponents. If checked to, an aggressive player may bet with air or draws. Check-raising punishes their bluffs and builds the pot.
Bet-Fold?
-If facing a raise, assess opponent tendencies. Fold vs tight players; call vs loose or bluffy opponents that will raise with draws.

🚫Wet Flops (e.g., **J♠ T♦ 9 ♠** – middling cards, multiple draws, high connectivity)
-Bet 35% pot for protection.
-Wet boards threaten your equity with flush, straight, combo draws. Navigating turns and rivers will be difficult. Small bets and small pots is the objective.

Options
Check-Raise?
-Highly effective here. Let opponents bet their draws, then raise to charge maximum. Example: If you check, a player with Q9 or 98 may bet. If you are 100bb deep check raising to get it all in against these hands heads up is profitable. The danger is raising into the nuts. Or very high equity hands.

Bet-Fold?
-Avoid unless facing a large raise from a passive player (indicates strong made hands like two-pair/sets/straights).

2. Opponent-Specific Adjustments
-Passive Opponents:
Bet smaller (50-60% pot) for value. They’ll rarely bluff-raise, so bet-fold only vs large raises.
-Aggressive Opponents:
Check-raise wet boards to exploit their bluffs. On dry boards, bet and call down if raised (they may have air).
-Loose calling stations:
Bet larger (75%+ pot) for Max value. They’ll chase draws, so punish them.
-Tight Players:
Bet smaller and bet-fold to raises (they rarely bluff).

3. Stack Depth Adjustments
- Short Stacks ( Bluff:
Top pair is vulnerable; prioritize betting for value charging draws over bluffing.
- Leverage Positional Disadvantage:
Use check-raise to flip the positional script in the right configuration.
- Adjust to Player Types:
Exploit nits with small bets, calling stations with large bet sizes, maniacs with check-raises.
-Avoid Hero Calls OOP:
When raised, lean toward folding unless you have a read.

Top pair OOP is a marginal hand in multi-way pots. Play it aggressively on dry boards, cautiously on wet ones, and always respect raises from tight opponents.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello there, Welcome into another episode of the Lola mccash
Games podcast. Glad to have you here. A reminder, at
the end of the pod, we'll tell you how you
can get more training. Teat you how to crush and
destroy low stakes hold them if that's what you're looking for.
As of the time of being recording this, we actually
have a very rare opening in the one on one

(00:22):
coaching tier. By the time you hear this, it may
not be open, but you may want to check on that.
Of course, the links to all that stuff is down
in the description below. Not going to spend a lot
of time on it now because that is the agreement
I made with you guys several years ago. So here
we go. We're going to talking about playing top pair
out of position, probably specifically top pair top kicker, but

(00:43):
it could also be like top pair really good kicker,
like you know, Queen high flopping. You have King Queen
that's really good. Obviously Ace Queen be top pair top kicker,
but hands like that. Trying to navigate with the top
pair hand out of position is you know, difficult. It
requires some nuance, especially if you have two opponents in position.

(01:05):
You're gonna have to balance some aggressions and protections and
pot control. Your strategy is gonna hinge on a lot
on the flop texture, what we know about our opponents
and their tendencies. Of course, stacked depth has always comes
into play prior actions of opponents, et cetera. Especially if
we have you know, some information in a situation exactly

(01:26):
or similar to this, that helps a lot too. All
that comes to just paying attention in the game. I'm
gonna do a breakdown on when to bet, check, check, raise,
bat fold and spots like this. Now, I just have
to worry. This is not the end all be all
treaties on how to play top pay out of position
to multiple opponents. It just doesn't like there's just a
ton of nuance. You should just really be paying attention

(01:49):
to your game. I'm just going to try to give
you some, you know, some general guidelines and if you'll
start thinking about hands in this way, you know you
can advance this either to you know, get better at it.
So this is for sure just some basics. But you
know number one is pretty much going to be flop textures.

(02:09):
So when you're out a position to multiple opponents, flop
texture is king and determining how you want to proceed
with a one pair hand, and in this case specifically
a top pair hand top pair of top kicker will
call it or top pair you know, really really good kicker.
So on these dry, unconnected type flop textures, so for example,

(02:33):
we have king three deuce rainbow, so it's not suited.
There aren't a lot of straight draws to speak of.
Of course, there could be some gutshot wheels with like
ace four, ace five, but not really strong draws. If
you've raised pre flop, which you should have. If you
have a top pairent top kicker do hand, you probably
should have been raising or maybe even three bettings. Sometimes

(02:53):
mostly just raising though considering we're out of position to
multiple opponents, so you know, four or five for open
ended shouldn't exist a lot, and then you have the
best top pair, right, So if you have ace king
on king three deuce, you know you just really have
a kind of a stranglehold on his hand. Almost always
no looks. Rarely you'll run into sets of deuces. Rarely

(03:15):
you'll run into sets of threes something like that. But
for the most part, the hands that will be in
there with you will be worst kings and then like
pocket jacks, pucket tens, pocket nines. So given the very dry,
very static nature of the board, we want to be
bett and smaller twenty three percent pot something like that.

(03:37):
You know, drym board just means they just really don't
have much to continue at all. They mostly really have
nothing except you know, lower pairs that you probably won't
get much more than one street of value out of
or worse king X. Now the worst king X will continue.
And that's the great thing about a flop texture like
this when they do continue. You know, if you just
say you bet third pot and they continue, you know,

(03:59):
sometimes that'll be like pocket nines, pocket tens, but more
often it'll probably be just another top pair hand a
reasonable percent of the time, which will allow you to
potentially size up and get more value across a ton
of turns. When you have these medium type flops, especially

(04:20):
these medium connected cards and suited all at the same time,
these can present a bit of a problem when you
have a one pair hand like a top pair top
kicker hand. So a good example this would be like
Queen of Clubs, nine of diamonds, four of clubs, so
man pre flap calling ranges just smack this board. When

(04:40):
you raise and get called pre flop, I mean they're
calling you with all kind of nine X. They're calling
you with jack ten for open ended, they're calling you
with all kinds of queen X. They're calling you with
some gut shots. So they'll be calling you like king
ten king jack that will want to continue. They're calling
you also with clubs, so club draws will want to continue.
So when you have a flop like this where there's

(05:01):
just a ton of hands that want to continue and
you have a top pair type of hands. So example
on Queen nine four or two clubs, if you have
ace queen here, you know, against two opponents out of position,
you know, we want to be betting about half poet.
We want to be trying to get value, we want
to be trying to protect against draws, and you know
extract knowing that there's just a lot of hands that
will continue. We're rarely ever behind on this flop again,

(05:25):
Queen nine suited as a hand people play. Sometimes we'll
be behind on like you know, two pairs and then
obviously sets of nines exist and then sets of four
is less often exists depending on what the race size was,
et cetera, and the players in the hands, so it's
opening to straight and gut shot straights, flush draws and
combo draws and all this stuff. With two opponents, it's
they just have a fair moniquity or stuff that wants

(05:46):
to continue, and there's a lot of turns that make
it dicey. So betting this flop's pretty important, you know,
and not betting a huge though, like we don't want
to really bet it, like monstrously huge, like eighty percent,
because now just running into bloated pots across some really
scary turns, so it moves from you know, its extracted

(06:08):
value to us potentially putting ourselves in some bad situations
on turns. We can explore other options, for example, going
with a check raise here, So if you have a
very aggressive ponent still to act after you that may
bet this, if you check to them, this might leverage
you into making a check raise here. Again, this is
going to be opponent dependent, so there's something you will

(06:30):
be paid attention into the hand. And then can we
take a bet fold line ever, so you know, if
you bet, you face a raise, you know, try to
figure out who your opponent is, like if he's a
really tight player, really snug player that you don't see
get out of line much and would never be raising
you with like Queen ten here on this board of
Queen nine four. Like if they're just never raising Queen

(06:50):
jack or Queen ten, it's that kind of opponent. I mean,
you can just fold. They probably doesn't have Queen nine
for two pair or set or something. That's those typeponents
don't tend to raise flow straws as well, so you
know they're probably not raising that. So in extreme scenarios
like that, you can take a betful type line. Now

(07:11):
let's be one with some really really really wet board textures.
So we're talking about dynamic, wet, all the words, all
the words. So let's look at a board like Jack
ten nine with two spades, So Jack ten nine with
two spades, and again, I guess, for just for an example,
let's just assume we have ace jack here, so top pair,
top kicker on Jack ten nine with two spades. These

(07:35):
middling cards with the multiple draws and all the connectivity
and everything just smacks so hard a ton of pre
flop calling ranges. You just almost always only be betting
small here when you decide to bet, you could also
just consider checking sometimes, especially the more you know you're
about your opponents. But I mean, the amount of hands

(07:58):
that are ahead of you or have a ton of
equity against you are enormous. You know, people love to
play the connectors, so you have ace jack top pairs
up kicker, but they can have jack ten for two pair,
jack nine for two pair, ten nine for two pair, seven,
eights for straights, Queen king for straights. I mean, depending
on who your opponent is. You know, rarely you might
see the old queen eight suited for a straight or something,

(08:20):
and then you get all the flush draws with the spades,
and then you have a lot of combo draws. So
let's say that they have like Queen ten of spades,
so they're open ended with a spade draw. Like just
so many many hands that'll continue here, And depending on
who your opponents are, you definitely would want to be
proceeding in ways that make some kind of a sense.

(08:41):
So you know, I like this' is a generic rule
of betting about third pot here into one or two opponents.
The one thing that you should be thinking about is
if you have a very adept opponent, that's still to
act after you who can knows that this flop is
bad for most of your range and will put you
to the test with a lot of race. You should

(09:02):
just look to check call here and see what develops
on turns against an opponent alike that specifically that very
specific type of opponent. Now, check raise here. Is this
ever effective? It's highly effective, especially against certain opponents. If
you have an opponent that will raise their draws and
stuff and they're aggressive, kind of like the one we
were talking about, if you go for a check raise here,

(09:24):
this could be pretty powerful. So the problem with that
is is that if it's like a regular run in
the middle of low stakes, more passive opponent, you don't
want to be going for jeck raises because they could
just have two pairs again the jack tens to ten nines,
the jack nines, the you know, flop straits and all

(09:47):
that kind of stuff. So it really depends on who
your opponent is. If you check and they bet, do
you want to go for the check raise? So you know,
as was is most everything in poker, so way, you
want to be painting and understanding your opponents and their
tendencies as well as you possibly can. You know, against
these passive opponents, going for a check raise will just

(10:08):
put you, you know, check raising into the nuts a
lot of the times, or you know, near nuts two
pairs of stuff that's just be very difficult for you
to catch up to. Whereas if you have very aggressive
opponent who understands this board is really scary for you,
and maybe they have you know, draws and opportunities to
improve their hand and stuff, they would just become aggressive

(10:29):
and just bet when you check to them, and so
it'd be you know, more in your interest to be
check raising those type players. Can we ever take about
fold line here? I mean, I'd mostly avoid it unless
you're facing like a really large raise from a passive player.
So again, if a passive player raises you, they they're
just not raising their draws. That's not how passive players play.

(10:52):
So on this board, which is super scary, I would
probably seriously considering folding to them when raised or when
you check and they bet for large value sizing end
to you. So you always want to be making opponents
specific adjustments. Right against passive opponents, you generally just want
to be betting smaller when you have value hands for

(11:15):
value like top pair top kicker. They're rarely going to
bluff raise you, so you're not gonna be putting a
lot of difficult spots. Only you know, maybe when they
get right out of line with some really big raises,
would you consider that aggressive opponents you can check raised
on these really wet boards to exploit their their you know,
tendencies to bluff and try to take down pots on

(11:35):
stuff that they scary. On dryboards, you can kind of
bet and call down if raised, because they can just
have air sometimes it's less likely that Just keep that
in mind on when this these really dry and static boards,
it makes it less less larger. Now, if you're in
a hand and you have a really loose calling station
after you, you should just always be betting large because there's

(11:57):
not folding anything. So just get maximum value from them
with their gut shots and their back doors. And then
of course they're you know legit draws as well straights
and flush draws and stuff. They're going to chase the
draws no matter what, even on the turn of one
card to come. So when the draws don't come and
you get the blank turn, you should continue to be

(12:18):
at large because they just won't fold. We talked about
stack depths, like always be considering stack depth in every hand,
but especially when you're out of position, especially multi way.
You know, when you got these shorter stacks in the
hands like less than fifty big blinds, like top pair
of top kicker, you can just become pot committed. You

(12:39):
can bet large and be ready to stack off because
top pair of top kicker is good enough. You know,
as you get deeper deeper stacks like over one hundred
big blinds, you want to start bringing your bat sizes
down a little bit. And most circumstances, not all because
we talked about some of the circumstances where you wouldn't,
but just generally speaking, your back sizings will come down

(12:59):
the deeper the stacks get, and you can utilize this
check raise spot versus loose and aggressive opponents when you're
in hands with them. But for the most part, the
deeper the stacks get, you want to avoid bloating pots
when you're out of position, especially when you don't have
a clear pen and for sure, if you don't have
a clear understanding of the opponents you're in the hand with.

(13:21):
Let's take a look at a hand that we might
potentially play like this. So we have ace king, and
we have two opponents in position to us. One of
them is a loose opponent, one of them is a
tight opponent. We have ace King, and the flop comes
King seven duce rainbows. It's very dry, it's very static.
Two of them position again, one loose, one tight. We
should betting like sixty percent of the pot here, fifty

(13:43):
percent of the pot here. I think sometimes, you know,
thinking about these loose opponents, especially their calling stations, they
might call a little bit more often. You could also
consider betting smaller. If that's not the case, if you
don't have an opponent like that in the hand, than
this board is just so you know, drying static. That
betting smaller, as we mentioned back at the beginning of

(14:04):
the podcast, would probably be wiser. She's gonna have to
lose a bit of judgment there if you do the
bet this and the type player folds and the loose
player calls, which is what we're going to assume happen
in this particular instance, and then you get a turn
that's like a five of spades here, so King seven
deuce five, that's all rainbow. You should continue betting because
this loose calling station type player probably just has something

(14:29):
they don't want to fold necessarily yet, and that card
is a complete blank. If you do bet that and
get called and you get a card like a three
on the river, this could look somewhat scary to some
people with the seven, five or three douce out there,
but it's really not. You should just continue to value bet. Now,
let's flip this around and assume instead of that flop texture,

(14:50):
we have like a king ten nine with two clubs,
So we have ace king on king ten nine with
two clubs. I would check this sometimes if we have
an aggressive, you know, opponent after us, like a lag
or somebody that you know when check too, really wants
to go for it. This is a it's a great
flop to do it because they have a lot of
hands they might want to do that with. And see

(15:12):
we can go for the check raise here and check
raise them big. It's a pretty good spot to do that.
So it's just like a couple of examples the way
you'd be thinking about hands, especially as it relates to
your position, your stack sizes, and the player types that
you're in the hand with. When you have top pair
top kicker type hands. Just remember top pairs vulnerable, prioritized

(15:33):
betting for value and charging draws over doing any kind
of a bluffing on you know, in these type spots,
especially on a lot of those board textures, you can
leverage this disadvantage you have from your position by check
raising sometimes when the when you know when the when
the situation calls for it, so be able to look
out for that and always just be an adjusting to
the player types that are in the hands with you,
so you can exploit these knits with small bat sizings

(15:57):
because they'll either just have something that may have you
crushed or these won't have anything, and so small bet
sizings accomplishes everything when you're betting against them. Now, if
you have if you have like calling stations in the hand,
you can bet bigger because they're just not folding for anything.
And then be looking out for these maniacs where you
can take these check raise spots against them. When you're

(16:18):
out of position, you want to hero call a lot
less you know, unless you you know know something about
your opponents or something you know that would allow you
to continue out of position with one pair of hands
against you know specific opponents like this, it's pretty hard
to continue too much, so we can start to continue folding,

(16:39):
especially as it proceeds across multiple streets, in other words,
past the flop end of the turn and into the river,
so top pairer out of position. It's a marginal hand
in multi way pots, right, and this the more multi
way and super multi weight is, the more marginal this
hand becomes, you know, against one or two players for sure,
played aggressively on these dry and active boards, more cautiously

(17:01):
on wet connected ones. And anytime you get a knitty
person or a tighter person, or especially a passive person,
or a combination of all three that raises you, you just
have to be willing to chunk your top payer top
kicker type hand away. I hope this episode of the
podcast has been somewhat helpful to you. A lot of

(17:22):
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(17:48):
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(18:10):
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(20:40):
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(21:01):
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