Tried to put the gist of it in the title.

Effective stacks: $700

Hero (UTG, $700) is a 20's guy with a neutral to slightly losing image (if anyone is paying attention) due to calling off a serial bluffer's flop 3! when he just so happened to show up with KK. I've raised in position and c-bet some flops but no major pots of note other than the all-in I lost and rebought after. Been at the table about two hours. I have 3! (light, cuz I've had no value hands!!) a handful of times actually (3x) and gotten folds 2x and a caller the 3rd time which I ended up delay c-bet (bluffed) and got shoved on and folded. Rest of the table has 3x a combined 1-3x and likely all had premium hands.

EP ($1200) is a MAWG that has been quiet. No real reads or relevant hands.

MP ($1300) is a MAWG that is loose pre and likes to call raises IP and attack weakness. Literally heard him mutter under his breadth "showing weakness" when a guy bet/bet flop/turn and checked river and MP stole it with a river bet. He has called a few of my raises and stolen the pot on horrible flops for my range that I checked.

HJ ($700) is a early 30's body builder type guy. He is open raising way too loose (~20-30% of hands) and c-betting virtually 100%. No one has really played back at him much but I have been paying attention. I originally had position directly to his left and had started light 3-betting him after I folded A6s to his raise and saw him call down with Ax on an A63J6 board for >100 BB's. I 3! him 2x light and he folded both times before I seat changed, and 3! him once in my new seat that he also folded. He could be getting fed up with me.

CO ($2200) is a MAWG business professional wearing a suit that looks like a bad rec player. He just table transferred so no real reads.

BTN ($1200) is a 2/5 grinder reg whose game I respect and we generally stay out of each other's way.

SB ($800) is a guy I know, normally plays 1/3 but recently started playing 2/5. Up and down for the session. He is the guy that shoved on my OOP 3! pre, delayed c-bet bluff on a T 3 6 8 board. Decent player but makes some questionable (loose) preflop calls.

BB ($900) is a 30's Asian women. Mostly quiet and tight. Hasn't played any hands that I can remember in the 30-45 minutes she's been here.

OTTH

Hero looks down at 8 8 and decides to ...

Any option is OK in this situation. I like limping the least, but the table seems passive enough that it isn't bad. Folding is OK, you don't have a big hand and your OOP. Raising to $20 is fine also.

25

If you don't think you will get 3! pre then I would go with standard open. If you can though I would keep it to the smaller side to say $20 instead of $25. The idea is if someone does 3! hopefully it is small enough to give you odds to set-mine.

Limp/calling looks a lot like someone set mining with middle pairs even to bad 2/5 players which makes getting paid off pretty hard. And I am not limp-raising. And not folding either.

I wouldn't wanna raise less (from UTG) and make it more of a sweetener raise with this logic. If someone 3bets me, most likely I'm folding, but we will most likely attract more callers and be 6 ways on the flop with a medium pair OOP than when someone 3bets us pre small enough to allow setmining odds. Also people are less likely to 3bet an UTG opener.

In my 2/5 game I would even go to 30 to get it heads up if possible, not invite more callers with a smaller raise. Yeah it's great when we flop a set but we're not going to (most of the time). Our UTG perceived range is strong enough to cbet most flops anyway when it's heads up.

Open for $20.

I am assuming standard open is either 20 or 25. My only point was if Hero typically opens to $20 good go with it. If Hero only opens to $25 then go with that. Dont make a $15 "sweetener" or even $20 if Hero's standard open is $30. My only point is at $700 eff it is really close if we get 3! and IF you can go smaller without setting off alarms then do it. Otherwise just go with standard open.

+1

Alright so open raise seems fairly obvious at a passive table such as this. Table wasn't excessively aggressive and my image was snug enough that an UTG open should command a modicum of respect.

Hero ($700) opens 88 UTG to $25
EP ($1200) folds
MP ($1300) calls $25

MP has position on me and has been calling pretty much every single one of my raises since I seat changed. Kinda making my life difficult but what are ya gonna do?

HJ ($700) raises to $100

Folds around to Hero
Hero?

This is the first time HJ has 3!, but I'm not quite convinced he has a premium hand here. He may be playing back at me since I had 3! him three times previously in the last hour that he folded to each time and now he's seeking a little revenge. His raising frequency (especially over limpers) is quite large which stands to reason his range is pretty wide. Using the available info, that should also give a LAG a fairly wide 3! range. 30 combos of AA-TT vs. 48 combos AK, AQ and KQ (and potentially way more if he is 3! AJ, KJ, QJ, AT type hands).

If you think he's getting out of line with middling broadways and whatnot, 4-bet to $260 to get him to fold his equity.

Otherwise, I just fold.

I wish our stacks were closer to 100bb's I would shove it down his throat

We are ahead of him a lot here I think so we don't really need to make a set if we can get to showdown with him reasonably cheap. Does he cbet pot? hp? does he fire/fire/fire?

I mean we can't rule out premium PP, but we can certainly rule in the likelihood of broadway blockers.

Don't you think 4! 88 is overplaying the hand a bit? Would you be 4!/folding or 4!/calling it off if he shoves?

I think flatting keeps our range wide and lets us bluff catch his airballs on favorable flops.

He's mostly played HU uncontested pots where he raises pre, c-bets 2/3 PSB flop and takes it down, or raises over a couple of limpers and takes it down. He hasn't been to showdown yet and hasn't had to make big turn or river bets (or faced big turn and river bets) but he just has the hallmarks of a bit of a bully by his preflop play.

We're not deep to begin with and now we're in a 3-bet pot. If we call, we are OOP with others to act which will bloat the pot even more. Our absolute & relative position will suck post. What happens if we get backraised by a field caller (unlikely, I know)?

We'll be able to fold to a 5-bet. What kind of a 5-bet range are we assigning to a MAWG rec player?

There is only one caller, the MAWG.

The raiser is the 30's weight lifting bully guy.

Considering how loose MP's calling range is in general, I don't see him coming along very often in a shallow 3! pot unless he has TT+ or suited Broadway's.

I guess we could 4!/fold but that opens us up to folding the best hand if this guy is acting out and monkey shoves AQ cuz he is tired of me raising him.

yeah I might just have to give it to him this time. He cbets 100%, a lot of flops will have overs, and our position sucks.

I don't think flatting is the biggest mistake to setmine, maybe he miraculously checks it back this time. I would hate to give it to him so easy though.

I would rather 4bet a more polarized range like AJ or AA than 88, so if I hate folding I'll flat if that makes any sense.

Flatting is just going to get you in trouble here. Your OOP with a hand that will leave you flying blind on most flops. Unless you hit a set or get an otherwise favorable flop you won't have any idea if you are ahead or behind. He could be c-betting air or value betting a higher pair and you will be guessing the whole way to the river.

If you really think he can be light here and has lots of KJ/T9 type hands in his range then 4 bet fold. If not just fold now.

I mis-read, I thought there was another field caller.

Against a 5-bet range of AQ+, TT+ we have 37% equity. If my calculations are right and we 4-bet to $260, we'll have to call off as we'd only need 24% equity for the call to be break-even. It's practically break even if his 5-bet/shove range is QQ+ and AK suited.

It all depends on how wide he's 3 betting and how wide he'll 5-bet/shove.

Really hate hand choice for a 4b bluff. If you think calling goes to the flop 3 way that's not a bad spot with 88 at this stack depth

Else fine with a fold

Why did you seat change? Unless I misread OP, it seems like you had the best seat at the table before you switched.

Open to $15 pre, call and play poker. Our hand plays well multiway and we have odds to call and set-mine if 3bet.

We have a read on villain, why can't we use it? He opens too wide but has shown not a lot of aggression postflop. He's a bit of a station, we can easily continue boards with one overcard and I doubt he's capable of triple barreling a UTG open.

Also merits to 4bet/fold if we think he is FOS and out of line. But he is shoving a lot because we have reason to believe he's kinda a station and we have 3bet actively at this table already

It was just a game flow thing. A seat opened up to the left of two players I wanted position on, and another player was joining the table about to take the seat and I didn't want him on my left. My new seat was still central to HJ, we split our hands IP/OOP vs. each other. He wasn't really my primary target.

Yah I wasn't really considering this hand for a 4! here. The fact that it is already a made-hand was kind of swaying me to call and see what develops, even though I would be putting in 1/7 effective stacks while OOP.

Funny you say that because after he raised I was thinking -- "I really don't think I can fold here even though prevailing logic dictates this being a somewhat trivial fold."

Hero ($700) opens 88 UTG to $25
MP ($1300) calls $25
HJ ($700) raises to $100
Hero calls $100
MP folds

Flop ($225): 7 9 7

Hero checks
Villain quickly bets $125 in greens
Hero?

Raise pre is good. V has 3! A utg open. I get the recent history but meh... No history given of villain 3! Tendencies. He's opening wide at a passive table sure but that doesn't mean he's 3! Wide. He could be playing back but it's not a spot he should expect you to be very lite.

We'd be calling 75 pre to win 150 + 600 implied. Just over 10:1. Set mining here is not really profitable. We are ahead of his unmade hands but oop it's going to be difficult to play. We are going to be guessing every street.

I probably pitch this one after his 3!.

20, call, call

Not sure if serious, but why are you folding 88 in a cash game?