It gets me every time

You have JQ the board is 38J94 the other guy had JJ, I get hit with this a lot. Is there a way to know when your opponent is holding the pair to your TPTK?

Post a hand history (HH) and we'll walk you through it. There are ways, such as reraising, that will make the opp define his hand and let you know the strength before the river.

You really shouldn't be loosing much in this situation, Top Pair Good Kicker is not a hand you bet the house on. There is not really a general thing you can do though, it depends on the specific situation. Post a HH or 2 and we'll have a look.

You are beat by AJ and KJ plus any straight too. TPGK doesn' t win many showdowns in Holdem.

There is really no way to answer your question without seeing the hand history, there are a lot of different ways to have your TPDK beat by a set.

General note about sets - people love to slowplay them (at least at the lower levels), so a pattern of smooth calling the flop and turn and then raising the river is a possible set

another set i see alot at 5NL is

Flop: check/call , Turn: check/raise , River: bet out

on a rainbow/ unconnected board.

Also even if this guy isnt holding a set he has TPGK smoked.