You would have to elaborate on just how you were attempting to push players around with 88, since the method used and the spot it was used in might not have been good. Maybe.

Here, who calls us? Loose guy raises and players flock in to see a flop. Nobody has much usually. AQ 66 T8ss KQo whatever. Even TT 99
AK can be in there, however do they call off $250 if they did not think enough of their hand to 3 bet to begin with?

In my experience with these spots, we take the pot right down in the vicinity of 4-5 times without even a race for every random AK that calls and even more remotely JJ TT. Its a landslide EV for us.

By the way, set mining might be plusEV here if all players are weakish and will payoff reasonably well with top pair hands etc, HOWEVER there is VERY LITTLE true profit that you can take home in that. Just because it is +EV, does not mean that it is true overall profit that you can spend. Much of that pot (if won with a set) would need to be kept in your bankroll especially if you beat a large hand like a lower set or top two in the hand.

When you shove and win, that is PURE PROFIT that you can spend.

Shove it iinnnnnnnnnnn
Look at all that dead moolah it's like half the effective stacks such a good spot.

Stacks aren't deep enough to set mine.

If we 3-bet smallish (75) we can get a call from tilted V a tonne of the time (not great with our hand) but also from the other players who have already invested 20 and see a tilted villain in the pot.

1. No it doesn't
2. so what? We probably can literally flip our hand face up and still shove profitably

grunching.

Shove all day. Pot is already $62 when it gets to you. Effective stack vs. villain is only $150. Shove and take the dead money with the added bonus of a potential coinflip with overlay. If everyone folds, it's great. if Villain calls, it's still pretty great. Plus shoving 88 and showing down will do great things for your image.

I like to flat here because our hand has too much post value . Squeeze with bluffs. Suited Ax/suited kx. This spot is awesome to squeeze, but not because of our hand.

@anl:

Ok that makes total sense. Guess that's why they call it "fold equity."

Yeah the problem I've had with 88 is about 90% playing strong against a mob of people who don't fold, and about 10% playing it monkey-style heads up. The latter is easier to treat than the former, which is a more sophisticated judgement IMO.

Thanks!

I think this spot is insanely close and would lean toward just flatting because of all that early position action. The drawback to just calling is that the stacks sizes aren't really big enough to realize any kind of post flop odds. The upside to shoving is that 1/2 players will fold better pairs. The downside is that the combined value of the current action beats 88.

I think I default to just flatting here, if raising I would go around 75 to try and clear the field of all but the IR.

Very very tempting to just shove tho.

Grunching but if this villain is truly opening as wide as you say I put in a huge raise here like always. None of the overcallers should have 99+ (certainly not QQ+) and hell they may fold 99/TT. Jamming or raising big just makes the most sense AINEC IMO.

Tilting villain playing 100/60 with a ton of dead money...yeah just cram

Def squeeze.

This is one of the spots that in-game I struggle with as well. Many times you just auto-pilot call, when after reading through the responses here, and thinking about it, it's obvious to me the best play is shove. The callers can't really be that strong, the player raising is doing so very wide so even if he calls its probably just overcards.

I like the shove.

Call...and play some poker
UTG and UTG+1 are likely calling a shove and IMHO 88 in a 3-Way all-in are not that great.
I don't like 3-bet because of stack sizes.

I'd want a little bit more information about table dynamics over the past 3 orbits to justify a shove/3bet. Have there been many 3 bets against villain over the past hour, what has been their ranges/villains calling range? Is it possible any of the callers (specifically UTG+1 and possibly MP1) could be slowplaying JJ+ in order not to turn their hand face up and hoping someone else 3 bets.

Finally, the players still left to act, are any of them the type to see this as a perfect squeeze opportunity if you do elect to flat? if so this would lead me further towards a 3 bet or shove.