Rough Pat 8s Before the First Draw (2-7TD)

[W. Deranged]

Table is five-handed. Deranged picks up 87532 in the small blind.

UTG (2+2er) raises. MP calls. Button calls. Deranged three-bets. BB folds. All call.

Newb question: Is my play to stand pat and bet aggressively as my opponents keep drawing, or is it to break the 8 and take 3 shots at #1 or #3?

Further action to come.

[fnord_too]

Tough spot. I think I stand pat. With 3 opponents, the stub is going to be mighty thin. In position, if you see two or three players take one, breaking may be better, but in the sb you have a big bowl of meh. (Breaking may be better, but then it really sucks to see everyone draw two. I haven't done the math, but I think this is close.) On the up side, when you lead the flop the 2+2er will probably raise to thin the field if he thinks it will work, so you have that going for you.

[TakeMeToTheRiver]

I think you need to keep betting and hope someone who is still drawing isolates and doesn't outdraw... OOP really sucks here because -- knowing the 2+2 dude UTG -- I would suspect he would raise you after the second draw even if he didn't make his hand if he sensed any weakness at all -- hoping you would break.

Low content additional notes: If I was UTG (and I assume I was not and had already left since you were five handed), I would have beat you because I draw goot. (and you need to do something about your friend that heckles you -- I would have punched him in the face at some point.)

[randomstumbl]

I don't even think of 8753 as being entirely rough. It beats 876 or 8754.

If you throw away the 8 you have 11 cards that will give you the same hand or better. So, you'll end up with a worse hand about 2/3 of the time.

This hand is difficult to play out of position, but I still think I'd raise and stand pat. If I'm against a tricky player, I'm just going to bet until I'm not sure I'm ahead and then look for a cheap showdown. Against a very straightforward player, I may consider breaking, but the cheap showdown option still looks pretty good.

The time to consider breaking is when the action is capped before the draw. If you're pretty sure there's multiple one-card draws out, you might want to make the later streets easier to play by discarding the 8. Really though, it's never that wrong to keep the pat hand, just don't get in a raising war later in the hand with it.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

in a 13 bet, 4 way pot like this, it probably is safer to break out of position and draw to the 7 especially since by the next draw you may have multiple players drawing one to beat you. the problem however with drawing though is that your odds of improving are slightly less because you would think that some 4's and 6's may be gone.

out of position i couldn't fault someone with drawing, though personally i'd probably just close my eyes, stand pat and let the chips fly until someone tells me otherwise.

[Ezcheeze]

You will make way more money staying pat. Theres an extremely good chacne 1 or both of MP and button are drawing 2 (maybe 3 for button). Theres also a resonable chacne UTG is drawing 2. Your hand is a monster rap pat and expect to win far more than 1 time out of 4.

[lighterjobs]

not drawing to a seven with a great draw like 7532 is tough, but i think i would stand pat with the eight.