effective stacks $180

Hero (BB) - ~ $180
Villain(B) - ~ $220

3 limpers and option is on me, I look down at 88 and raise to $12, UTG calls, Button calls, and SB call. Flop comes 457
SB checks, I check, it gets checked to the Button who bets $20, SB calls $20, and I decide to raise all in here for $168 remaining. UTG tanks for a couple minutes and looks like he really wants to call but he ends up folding, and the button snap calls, SB folds.. He shows 510 and tells me he thought I was on a flush draw, turn is a blank and river is a 10 giving Villain two pair.
My question here is with an over pair to the board and a gut shot straight draw, plus a backdoor flush draw, how much should I have bet on the flop instead of the all in play? UTG says that he folded 4 7 because he thought I flopped a straight. Thanks

If you’re going to raise pre you need to raise much larger to reduce your opponents implied odds. I’d raise to something like $22-25. When you raise larger preflop it makes it easier to get the money in post flop with one pair hands. When the stack to pot ratio is smaller you have a better chance of winning the hand with made hands.

I take it you’re a bit of a newer player, after this many limps I would just check my option in the BB with 88 and try to play post flop. I’d only raise with 99+ and AQs.

Good luck out there.

I would check BB: Your preflop raise size is a bit small even online (often recommended 3x the last bet plus all limps plus the blinds) but live if you do raise you certainly want to bump it up even more. If people are still calling with T5o and snap calling shoves with mid pair, you will lose sometimes, but it should be a very profitable game. Bad runout, but you got the money in well ahead. A lot of 1/2 players always put their opponents on draws with two suited cards.

Against that type of opponent, I suppose stack off, but you seem like a higher variance player than me. It is an awkward stack to pot ratio to shove here. I am calling this street. Of course, there are a lot of bad turn cards for you, so I do not mind the play.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree my bet sizing should’ve been a bit larger pre flop. Maybe I would raise to $25 in that same spot if my stack was 150 BB’s or so. I don’t understand how checking the big blind would be putting me in a favorable position to win the hand though. 88’s are ahead of most opponents limping range and there are plenty of high cards that could come out to beat me. I was really just trying to take the pot down right there on the flop but I guess donk shoving into multiple opponents wasn’t a good idea. I’ll try a more measured approach in the future.

When you're in an early position you're not going to win a multiway pot very often with 88 unless you flop a set. To improve your chances you either want to raise big to fold their overpairs or just check and try to build a pot postflop. There is some merit to pot sweetening raises here, something like $5 that everyone is going to call, but it will make the pot more attractive for people to make bad calls when you flop an 8. It's not a play that's part of my game, but maybe it should be.

Being ahead of their ranges now is far less important than position and postflop play, where the most likely situation for you postflop is you'll end up with an underpair in early position against multiple opponents, and that's not a spot you can make a lot of money from.

The check/raise all-in play isn't all that bad here though. You're ahead of a lot. It's unlikely someone has a straight here when you hold two of the 8's, and the only other straight is the lowly 36. Although if they are playing 74 and T5 then 36 is in their range too. The main risk is the flop checking through, but since you have a re-draw to a much bigger hand that's not as bad for your equity as it would be if the flop were something like 223.

I would have probably just lead big on the flop, because I expect to be ahead here a lot, and your hand will be somewhat disguised if you do hit a 6.

Awesome insight, Thanks Koss. This is my first time posting and see the value from discussing spots like this already.

Post-hand you should already be noting that these players are calling with nearly any two cards given that they showed 5T and 47. That alone should let you adjust your preflop tendencies. Raise bigger pre to ~15-20 possibly, or if you want to set-mine can even consider 8-10 to really encourage a big pot. Exploitative, but no one is watching you at 1/2.

Regarding flop.... the all-in is fine but I will say this. let me remind you that you are playing against classic 1/2 fish. One guy is MUBSy as hell folding two pair and the other guy calls light, both very common archetypes in 1/2 (especially the second type which we love). Yes 88 is a great hand on this board and you block the nuts (68) which makes it a great hand to raise without too much fear, but you don't have to resort to higher variance "fancy play" against these opponents. Instead, we should be printing money against these fish by raising with more nutted value and being confident in our post-flop play that we don't need to GII early even if it's "standard". What if you're called off by an Ax flush draw? We're ahead 60/40 for our stack - we should be good enough at crushing 1/2 that we can avoid playing for stacks like that

Buy-in deeper so we can have more options post-flop. Again, think it's fine to GII on the flop given that so many turn/river cards will be scary.

This is excellent analysis of this spot.

limp call UTG with 4-7 and 5-10 off
this is a juicy game punish them