$50 home game tourney with about 40 people. Starting stack: 20, 000. Down to six people, current stack 35000. Blinds 2500, 5000. I am in big blind..UTG is tight aggresive. 2nd position is loose (plays a lot of starting hands but will lay down hands, not a calling station, just likes to see a lot of flops). UTG calls, 2nd postion calls, fold, fold, small blind folds. I pick up pocket 8's... Pot size is 17500. I have 30,000 left. Sixth place gets money back, 5th place gets about 100 back, 4th around 150, 3rd, about 250, 2nd about 500 and first about 900..WHAT Would YOU DO???

Raise it to three times the BB, leaving you with 20,000 left (raise of 10,000). You are in great shape against two random hands, and you'd have enough chips to play another hand if the flop was ugly

Blind structure sucks btw

Push.

You are likely to have the best hand at the moment.

You want to either take the blinds now or get heads up and have your hand hold up.

I think this depends on the stack sizes of UTG and second position. Raising to 15,000 might not be enough to make them fold any hand they would limp with. UTG will be getting 3-1 to call and second position will get much better odds if UTG calls.

If my math is right, the average stack is around 130,000 at this point, and the big stack could have quite a bit more. If either of the two other players still in has a big stack, they probably won't fold to a small raise. And when they call you, you will be pretty committed to the pot. So you could be best off pushing with this hand, especially if you are short stacked. With fewer than 10 big blinds left, I will push with a lot of hands if I am the short stack.

I agree, no sense in making a little push. Use the full power of your stack, get all your money in there and pick up all the money in the pot. I couldn't imagine why someone would limp in with a bigger pocket pair because the blinds are big enough compared to the stack to take them with a raise, so you probably do have the best hand. You might even get a smaller pocket pair to call your all in, but I think most times you will take the money in the pot and add to your stack.

Push, two limpers ahead of you means that you are probably ahead right now. Hopefully, they both fold and you take the pot or at most, one calls so that you can isolate.

The flop was 10 3 2 rainbow.. Would you now push in first position to act if you raised 3 times the blind and got two callers??


The UTG stack had about 60,000 and the other stack had about 120-140,000. somebosy asked this so I thought I would post it.

And Vade, why do you think blind structure sucked???

You are certainly in jam or fold territory here, and 88 is strong enough to jam with. This is the perfect opportunity for the squeeze play. It's hard for UTG to call because he's squeezed between an all-in and another player and he has to play from the worst possible position. He simply will not call with anything less than a monster (which he definitely could be slowplaying). And UTG+1 hasn't shown any strength at all, and will most likely fold. If UTG has a monster, then oh well. You're still only a 4:1 dog and getting almost 3:1 on your money if you get 1 caller. Doing the math for the likely range of hands that will call here, you're easily getting the correct odds to jam.

IT seems like most people thought a push was th right play here. That is what I did. I thought UTG might call me with a couple overs but I was relativley short stacked and willing to try and win a race. He did call and go all in I guess hoping to make sure UTG +1 doesnt call and he only had about 15000 more anyway. Ok, Ive got to hope he doesnt hit right..Well, the loose UTG +1 calls both all ins. Now I know I am in trouble and just hoping the have each others aces and their other cards dont hit. UTG flips up AQ as expected. UTG+1 then flips up KK. No 8, UTG hits Ace on river and wins the nice pot and goes on to win. Oh well. I just wanted to make sure I made a resonable play. The flop was 10 3 2 so I figure I would have pushed on that anyway so I was in trouble either way. Thanks for hte respnonces