DECISION POINT: You bet the turn with top pair, decent kicker, and get raised by your opponent. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: It’s often useful to think about our overall strategy and betting lines with top pair. Typically with top pair in position on a coordinated board we're going to bet the flop, then bet the turn and check on the river if our hand doesn't improve.

One reason for that is these types of hands usually only retain value across two points of aggression. Every point of aggression further narrows our opponent's range. Once we've narrowed it more than twice against most opponents their overall range is going to get narrow enough that we simply cannot continue profitably with a one pair hand.

That being the case, by default we should fold here after we get check-raised. If we have opponent specific information that our opponent would often take this line of action as a bluff, perhaps we could deviate from our standard strategy.

However, most opponents check-raise the turn with too strong of a range for us to continue. Raising a very innocuous looking turn card is often a sign of strength from standard unknown opponents.

Folding is the best play.