quick little preflop buddy

[EvanJC]

this hand seems too good to fold but not good enough to raise against the field. am i wrong?

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (6 max, 6 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, MP calls, CO calls, Hero calls, SB completes, BB checks.

call/raise/fold?

[mcvalenc]

Perfect.

I'd raise/fold. It's an offsuit hand with a poor/average kicker. You're likely playing 5-handed, which is not the favorite conditions for this hand.

I fold this personally. Too many other hands outkick it, and flopping an 8 is a weak hand with this many players in the pot.

[EvanJC]

conflicting opinions! consensus?

[mcvalenc]

If you play it well after the flop I think a limp is good, but at best it's still a very marginal limp. I think enough poor players limp in with worse aces to make it playable with position. If you don't feel comfortable playing this postflop then a fold is fine. Hope that clarifies my opinion a little.

[DaSpade]

Easy fold. Raise any ATo+ and any Axs.

[weevil]

[ QUOTE ]
this hand seems too good to fold but not good enough to raise against the field. am i wrong?

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (6 max, 6 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, MP calls, CO calls, Hero calls, SB completes, BB checks.

call/raise/fold?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would raise this if there was a good chance both blinds would fold and the limpers were fairly loose. Even with position, a weak offsuit ace does very poorly against a large and loose field. They're getting implied odds from you, so it's just one of those hands that has a lot of reverse implied odds against many opponents. If there were several really really bad players expected to be in the pot, and a good chance my ace wasn't dominated, and raising wouldn't fold the blinds, I would probably call, but against an average 1/2 field I think this is a fold unless the first condition seems possible, and then you obviously should raise. If this were a suited A8, it's an easy raise against weak limpers and blinds.

Ok, a little more detail.

A8o is the midpoint for aces. You dominate A2-A7, you lose to A9-AK. Thus you dominate slightly more hands than dominate you. The more people in the pot, the more likely someone dominates you. You'd think someone with AJ+ would raise preflop, but many weak players always limp them.

Next we have to look at the 8. Clearly domination isn't an issue, but with this many players in the pot a pair of 8's isn't likely to win.

So you've got 2 cards. One that's only OK due to your weak kicker, and one that's poor. On balance, that's a fold.

In general, but particularly with any multiway hand (and even with a raise you're looking at proabably 4 people), you really want hands that can win at least 2 of 3 ways, and here I'm stealing this from SSH or ToP or some such. The more multiway the less #1 matters and more that 2/3 matter, vice versa for HU.

1) Big card value
2) flush value
3) straight value

A8o has reasonable big card value and little else, so it's a pretty easy fold for me in this situation. Hands like AJo+ start to have big card value for both cards, which counts for a lot despite the fact the straight possibilities are more limited than something like JT.

Again, analysis props go to one of the many poker theory books, not myself [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Alexthegreat]

Game conditions??

It's either a raise or fold. If the other players suck, it's a raise. If they are good, it's a fold.