boarder line 88 utg..fold?

[Allinlife]

***** Hand History for Game *****
NL Hold'em $10 Buy-in + $1 Entry Fee Trny:8010233 Level:3 Blinds(25/50) - Sunday, December 19, 13:43:49 EDT 2004
Table Table 11176 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: toddyboy22 ( $2635 )
Seat 5: The__Bluffer ( $970 )
Seat 10: shordy ( $675 )
Seat 9: Hero ( $670 )
Seat 7: oluck9206 ( $2195 )
Seat 4: golfn27 ( $610 )
Seat 1: ezemlime ( $245 )
Trny:8010233 Level:3
Blinds(25/50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 8h 8d ]

[bigredlemon]

you're lucky enough to act late. If it's folded to you, i'd make a big raise and hope to steal the pot. If you get called, i'd push all in on the flop if there's isn't any scare cards. If anyone has limped in ahead of you, i'd fold. You don't have enough chips to play for set value.

[Allinlife]

I was utg

[Phoenix1010]

There's no great answer to this question. I'd really hate to fold this. Your stack is getting rather low ( and will be even lower once the blinds pass) and you can't hope for a much stronger hand any time soon. However, you are in the worst possible position. You can easily get blindsided by a bigger pair, and you don't have enough chips to make a standard raise and fold to a reraise.

To tell the truth when I've been in similar situations, I've just pushed all-in and hoped, but I really think that's a bad play. Pushing all-in with 7 players yet to act with a hand as weak as 88 is rarely going to work out. When you get called, the best you can hope for is a coinflip, and a lot of the time you'll find yourself down 4 to 1. You can't really expect anyone to call that many chips with 77 or A7s. If you manage to dodge all the landmines and everone folds, you get a measly 75 chips.

Limping might just be a worthy alternative here. I'd call it paying for preflop position. For 50 chips (which may be far too much) you effectively become the last to act preflop. You get the benefit of being able to observe all of the preflop action, where the raises and/or reraises come from, assess the dangers behind you, and judge whether or not you can get yourself into a favorable situation (the best situation would be heads up against someone who doesn't have a big pair and just might fold to your limp all-in reraise, but that could just be wishful thinking).

The drawbacks to limping here are pretty clear. You're shortstacked enough as it is, and all that information comes at a pretty hefty price. If you limp, and decided to fold for whatever reason, you've essentially thrown away a big blind, and you've only got 13 of them to go around. An even bigger problem is that 88 does not hold up very well in a multi-way pot. Your limp may induce others to limp behind you, and very often your hand will be no good on the flop. So once again, you've thrown away a precious big blind.

So like I said, there's no great way to play this situation. Each method has it's positives and negatives, and it might just be that folding and waiting until you have a better hand/better position is just the only way to handle it.

Regards,
Steve

[adanthar]

In a $10, I think this is a relatively easy limp since the table will often limp behind you.

[bigredlemon]

[ QUOTE ]
In a $10, I think this is a relatively easy limp since the table will often limp behind you.

[/ QUOTE ]if you get raised, it's actually worth pushing all in if there's not much action. If not, play for set value.