[Wynton]

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The coinflip situation is definitely dependant on how well the player plays postflop; my understanding is that each of your preflop equities are ~50%. But if we can cause him to make an unprofitable fold, this would shift things in our favor.

Conversely, if he can cause us to make an unprofitable call then things shift in his favor. This comes back to Stellarwind's mention of how it's harder for us to get away from our hand when he improves than it is for him to let go UI on the turn (actually resulting in implied odds in his favor).

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I don't think the focus should be on whether we are forcing our opponent to make a mistake. If that was our only concern, you could probably even make an argument for cold-calling; but cold-calling with 88 at an unknown table would clearly be wrong, because we have no idea how many opponents we'd end up facing, or whether we'd face a reraise from a later player.

Thus, the choice here is between raise or fold, in my view. If we think our hand is a favorite against the average hand of the unknown utg, we should raise, notwithstanding that our opponent might have an easy time making a decision on the flop or turn.

One factor some have touched on implicitly is how we like to begin at an unknown table. Sometimes, I will be overly tight at the outset, just in order to get some information before making borderline moves. Sometimes, I'm in a different mood, and feel like beginning with an overly aggressive image. I do not think that either approach - during your first orbit - is inherently superior.