Gutting Your Top Pair

So you have flopped a top pair, congratulations. Things are looking up but this is not the time to start writing the victory speech and booking a trip to Disney World. There are a ton of things that can go wrong: your top pair is far from safe until the last card has fallen. The first thing you want to do is see how many people are still in the pot, the more people who have chosen to hang around after the flop, the more vulnerable your hand is. What you will want to do in this situation is raise the next time around to force the drawing hands out.