I recently played a hand in a major tournament where I flopped top pair, top kicker, but ended up folding on the flop. Sometimes you have to make a disciplined laydown even when you flop a strong hand.

With blinds at 200-400 plus a big blind ante of 400, I raised to 1,100 out of my 50,000 stack from first position at an eight-handed table with Ad Jd.

To some, A-J suited may seem a bit too weak to raise from first position, but it’s a fine hand that should pretty much always be raised. A-J offsuit, however, should be folded. Being suited greatly increases your postflop playability, not only because you make more premium hands by the river, but also because you’re presented with more situations where you have significant equity, allowing you to check-call or semi-bluff more often. If you want to loosen up your range a bit, it’s usually best to add suited hands before unsuited ones.

A tight player with 20,000 in chips called from middle position, as did a good young player with a stack of 40,000 in the small blind. The big blind folded.

The flop came Jc 8d 5c, giving me top pair, top kicker. The small blind checked, and I bet 2,600 into a pot of 4,100.

When the board is somewhat draw-heavy, it’s important that you continuation-bet with strong but vulnerable made hands. This is especially true when you’re not sure which turn cards you have to worry about. You should bet to protect your vulnerable made hand against whatever might come.

The middle position player called, and then the small blind check-raised to 8,500.

That was not what I wanted to see. When someone check-raises from out of position on a coordinated board, their range usually consists of premium made hands and draws. Assuming that my opponent, who had demonstrated that he was a competent player, would only check-raise with overpairs and better made hands, I appeared to be in awful shape.

If my opponent had a draw, I would have about 60 percent equity, so I was either in terrible shape or slightly ahead. Because my opponent was on the tighter side, he may have had fewer draws in his range than normal, meaning he was more likely to have a strong made hand.

If the stacks were shallow, I would have had to get all in due to the decent pot odds. But with our 100 big blind effective stacks, I felt obligated to get out of the way. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to play for all of your money simply because you got a favorable flop.

I also had to account for the middle position player who called my flop bet. While he was unlikely to have a premium hand, there was a chance he could show up with a slow-played 8-8 or 5-5, or a premium draw such as 10c 9c. When there’s more than just one other player in the pot, you have to proceed very cautiously when facing significant aggression.

I folded, the middle position player jammed all in for 20,000 and the small blind called. The middle position player had 5-5 and the small blind had 8-8.

Good thing I folded!