[RustyBrooks]

Actually I think Sklansky does always recommend raising a person in steal position if you have a 3 card hand.

"When you are in a situation where somebody else is raising andmay be trying to steal the ante and you find yourself with any kind of playable 3 card hand, such as a 3-card-8, it is imperative that you re-raise him so that so that he does not have 2 different ways of winning the pot [...]"

There's more but I leave it to you to read the rest. It's on page 107 in my edition, 2nd page of Third Street Play.

Beyond the immediate considerations for the hand, there is an important meta-game consideration. Re-raising this guy shows that you'll play back at him and he'll think twice about stealing, and will instead start value-raising there with real 3 card hands and throwing away his worst hands.

Some people steal so rarely that taking a raise line as a defense is a bad idea, however, heads up, with the worst 8, you are not much of a dog to his best possible hand (you're a 60:40 dog vs A23) so the times that your opponent actually has a legitimate hand, you are not taking much the worst of it.

This is a fact that seems to surprise a lot of people. Heads up any playable 3 card hand has about the same chances on 3rd st, disregarding dead card (which can change things considerable. If you have 678 and there are two 8s and a 6 on the board, guess what, it's now nearly 50:50). People act like A25 is the nuts vs xx8 but it just ain't, on 3rd.

Now, that A25 is probably going to be much easier to play on later streets. You'll have better chances at drawing, you'll draw to stronger hands, you'll know where you're at vs the 8 and he'll be guessing, etc, etc. This is a common occurrence in poker, where the hot-and-cold equity indicates that 2 hands are of equal strength but one is much easier to play than the other. A classic example is AK vs 22