It's hard to make a pair l Barry's Strategy Corner
Top pair is not only a powerful value hand it's an even more powerful blocker, so you need a very good reason to fold it.
As we start a new year, I wanted to begin my strategy series with perhaps the most useful lesson I learned in 2025, one which had an immediate impact on my game.
That was all about playing hands like top pair, bad kicker. For example, when I defend with A2s and flop an Ace, and my opponent is firing bets my way. If you look at solver outputs, they never really fold these hands because the opponent is supposed to be bluffing enough to make them a great bluff catcher. However, in real life, I would fold a lot of rivers with them, sometimes even turns.
My coach Dara O'Kearney put these spots into perspective by explaining that not only do you have top pair, you also heavily block top pair, which is perhaps the more important factor. Roughly speaking, the chances of your opponent having one of the other Aces is reduced by about 25%, which increases the chances of them bluffing by about 25%.
Domination is not a thing
To show just how little we should worry about domination in these spots, this is a Small Blind continue range against an under-the-gun open:
Notice that the suited A2s type hands are favoured over hands with much better kickers like A9o. The fact that these hands can make flushes and wheels is much more important than having the best top pair. If domination was a big factor, we would surely see the bigger Aces favoured.
Let's assume that the Small Blind calls and the flop is A72 rainbow, it goes check, bet, and the Small Blind calls all of their Ace-x. The turn is an offsuit 6. It goes check, bet half pot, and this is the Small Blind response:
No Ace folds here, really. Notice, however, that TT-88 are all instamucks. Now A2s and TT are practically the same hand, in that they beat all the bluffs, beat all the 2nd pair thin value bets, and are in trouble against any other Ace. But A2s always continues and TT never does, precisely because it blocks the hands we are concerned about.
Once I internalised this, I would only ever fold the rag Aces in these spots when I had a specific read on my opponent. Obviously, it would suck when I ran into a cooler, but it was also notable how often I was right, and interesting what my opponents would show up with. Sometimes they had complete rags, sometimes they were thin value betting 2nd pair, but a great deal of the time they could not let a hand like KK go.
The final penny dropped when I think back to something I often hear great players say, which is that it is "hard to make a pair". It's even harder for your opponent to make top pair when you have the same one.
