$2.25 Sit n go Full tilt. 40/80 Ante 7, Bring in 10

7 6 2 9 7 T 9 are the doors showing, I have J J 4.

3rd st action:

xx2 brings in
xx9 fold
xx7 calls
xxT calls
(JJ)4 (me) ??
xx 9
xx 7
xx 6

what's my best action?

T and 9 are loose passive, will get in most unraised pots. other players have been tight so no significant reads.

fold. by playing that you're effectively playing for half the pot. jacks aren't going to go very far here.

really? i think a raise is perfectly fine with the best high hand, trying to isolate those behind and define opponents hands. this hand plays really tricky i think and creates great bluffing and value betting opportunities.

i'm i totally mis-guided?

i think calling is terrible though.

Fold. If anyone else playing for low has an ace in their hand you are in jeopardy of losing on the high side too. Plus once someone makes a low they will make you pay to see if your high hand holds up.

Fold. Don't play for half...it's not worth it.

It seems that general logic is that this hand should be folded preflop. This is something about stud 8/b that has never made sense to me. Yes, we are playing for half the pot when you want to be looking for scoop hands. But how is this any different than entering the pot with a hand like A26. While yes we've got some straight potential, the odds of hitting would be so low were basically playing for half the pot. I guess were drawing to making a pair of aces, but it still seems the main reason to play this hand is for a low draw and hope we back into some sort of high hand to go along with it. In lower buy in tourneys like this just about anyone with 3 cards lower than an 8 comes in on 3rd. At showdown pots are ususally 3-4 players, 2-3 of which started with crappy low cards and either hit a low or made ONE PAIR and call anyway. I think overlooking the high is a bad way to play these tourneys. Its not like we're against good oppenents where the pot will come down to us and our big pair and two low draws. So many players at this level don't make any adjustment and play low pairs and high cards as they do in regular stud.

I think we gain enough value from mediocure high hands to play here. We have a pair higher than anyone elses door cards, on top of that its well hidden. The 4 up looks like we may be betting a strong 3 card low and intice worse high hands to come along. Granted I think they call regadless of how our hand looks.

A26 isn't a stellar hand either...but still much better than JJ4 because when you miss for low, you'll have a decent chance to back into Aces up which is much, much better than jacks up. Andrew Prock (creator of PokerStove) calculated Stud8 equities for 7-handed play (no folding), and almost any 3 low beats JJA (2 suited). JJA (2 suited) has a 7-handed equity of 17.9%, good for 528th of 1755 possible canonical hands. The following 3 card lows are worse than JJA (2 suited): 872 rainbow (538th, 17.4%), 873 rainbow (548th, 17.2%). As one plays tighter games, cases can be made to open up your starting hand distribution, and I would expect that naked big pairs would do better.

JJ4 (2 suited) is only 0.4% more likely to win than a random hand 7-handed (721st, 14.7%). So this is a horrible call/complete early in a tourney IMO.

In contrast, A26 rainbow is (154th, 24.7%).

I hope not too many people read this post and take this to heart. But I am in a giving mood today.

http://www.pokerstove.com/analysis/s8rankings.php

Funny...I was dealt JJ4 suited just now in my first 10 hands of sitting down at a ring game...I threw it away.

TY! good stuff there.