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Thanks for the responses, particularly the ones that discussed the hand strategy post flop...tpir, cero_z and Post-Oak.

Obviously the key difficulty with this hand is the type of opponent being faced. I do agree with those that thought obtaining more information earlier in the hand and/or winning a small pot in this situation may be the way to go. The difficulty is that the villain may well have called a reraise on the flop with AK or 88. Having hit trips on the flop, I wonder if he would've been tricky enough to smooth call a reraise on the flop and put the hero in a real difficult position on the turn.

The hero called and it turned out that the river card was the worst possible card that could have appeared. The hero hit his draw while at the same time filling up the villain, whom had 87.