Folding Top Two Pair Against A TAG Reg

Playing live $2/$5, you flop top two pair against a TAG regular. But when the action gets heavy and stacks are heading into the pot, is it time to think about folding two pair against a likely set?

Push play and let’s review this poker hand together:

This hand was recently shared in the Red Chip Poker Discord by user “Snoino.” Join our Discord today and start sharing hands to possibly get featured in an upcoming poker video.

From hero’s original post, they shared the following information: “Minimal history with villian. She’s an Asian women in her 30’s with some tattoos. I’ve paid her off with AA’s vs a set on the flop a while back in a diff session. She seems to be a TAG reg.”

I won’t spoil the entire video, but this reply from Chris is perfect and exactly the way you want to start thinking about flop spots like this:

“I know I’m late, I read other replies, will agree 3-bet is the default recommended play here.

On the flop, it’s important to note this is a GREAT flop for our opponent’s range. The reason we call is simply because we should NEVER be raising this flop. Being at the top of our capped range doesn’t change much.

Now as played, you’re probably over-thinking it a bit, since you shouldn’t be raising it’s not impossible a good TAG would make a move when you do raise. You can’t feel bad about stacking here, you would have to play hours upon hours with an opponent and consider them an uber nit to fold on this texture.

It feels bad, but psychologically we under-account for our opponents coming after us and this happens to be a prime situation for that. You can’t fold for 100bbs.”

One final note is that even though it’s typical to lose $580 here when you flop two pair against a set, you may have avoided this loss by 3betting preflop.

Most players are comfortable just calling the preflop raise, but we actually suggest 3betting AQ as a default in this situation. If you are a CORE member at Red Chip Poker, you get all of our preflop ranges, including 3bet ranges for both 6max and full ring games (even live full ring games).

Join CORE today and see what else you should be 3betting preflop!