TPTK what do you do with it?

against players who are somewhat inexperienced... when i have this, and a player is betting into me with almost pot sized bets, and i have TPTK it is hard to determine whether he actually woke up with a hand (2 pair, trips, higher pocket pair) or if he is just betting top pair or middle pair, or a straight draw or flush draw. do i depend on a tell in this situation? or woudl you just fold it?

froghump said:

against players who are somewhat inexperienced... when i have this, and a player is betting into me with almost pot sized bets, and i have TPTK it is hard to determine whether he actually woke up with a hand (2 pair, trips, higher pocket pair) or if he is just betting top pair or middle pair, or a straight draw or flush draw. do i depend on a tell in this situation? or woudl you just fold it?

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Cash or tournament? Have these players had to showdown any hands after following these lines? Also, what is the texture of the board? It's hard to consider this problem in a vacuum, the answer is dependent on a lot of things.

Like cja said. You're leaving out a lot of information. Was there any betting preflop? How aggressive is the player usually? If he is a total rock and then all of the sudden starts betting in this hand, you're probably beaten. If he is consistently making these types of plays and then folding on the river, then you are probably ahead. Also, is the board connecting? Full of high cards? If so he could be on a draw or have a top two pair coming in with something like KJo. Try to be a little more specific in your situations. I realize you are talking about a generality, but there are too many possibilities for that

The only advice I can offer is to think about the particular situation you are in at that moment and decide what cards your opponent has.
You have to figure out how many hands he could have that beat you and also hands he might have that you beat.

Generally though I play aggressive with tptk either in or out of position, maybe even too aggressive but I like to put the pressure on my opponent and make them decide if they are beat or not.

One generalization I've found is that playing something like AK and hitting top pair on the flop against inexperienced players usually yields dividends if played aggressively. I'm constantly amazed at what donks call you down to the river with. The one thing you must worry about is that a calling station can improve his hand on the turn and river from middle pair to two pair. Its a dangerous game, and you can never really be sure how much the card that just game on the board helped him.