DECISION POINT: You bet the turn with top pair, decent kicker and get check-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 (and this board is quite coordinated!) we're going to bet the flop, then bet the turn and check behind 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. 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 here just have too strong a range to continue. Check-raising a very innocuous looking turn card is often a sign of strength from standard unknown opponents.

Folding is the best play.