[HoldEmNewby]

*I don't see stack sizes so I'm assuming 100BB stack sizes
Me Thinking out loud:

Preflop:
Pot is unopened we're sooted with J8 in the CO. Raising here is okay occassionally. The thing with a hand like J8s is even when the board comes through for us, we rarely have a hand that will make us a ton of money. With a hand like this against a thinking player, when we get action we are usually behind (notice our being scurred in this hand). Its good for mixing it up though, just don't get carried away with it.

Flop:
Flop we hit strong and betting out is good as it just looks like a standard cbet. After we get repopped calling is good. It allows us to re-evaluate the turn as top + bottom is a medium strength hand on this kind of a board.

*Note: against a strong reraise like that top+bottom is foldable on the flop. However, our read is this guy is aggressive. Call and evaluate because 1) our hand is not strong enough to want to get it all-in on this board 2) we don't want to fold just yet because we know this guy is aggressive 3) though there are tons of scare cards that could kill the action on the turn, but it also work in our favour. Even an aggressive player thinks twice about double barrelling on a board with 4 to a straight and 3 to a flush when the action is bet,raise, call on a very wet board. As a result the turn will help greatly to shed light on villains holdings 5) we're ahead of enough of villains potential range to warrant at least going to the turn.

What do we put button on, on the flop (In relative order of likelihood based on action thus far)? JT,AA-QQ,99,flopped pair + combo draw,a combo draw,draw, air, T8, 88, TT, JJ, AJ-QJ,and Q9.

Turn:
YAY for boats. Do we lead or do we check?
*Lead for $65 (2/3 psb):
- draw, a combo draw,air will all likely fold.
- JT,99 may do a crying call/calling station esque call. JT is angry at the gods and is hoping his 6 outs will come thru. 99 is clinging to 8 outs. flopped pair + combo draw (provided that pair is not an 8) will probably hang in there as well.
- AA-QQ are calling or pushing
- JJ,TT will call and dry to bleed you or push
- T8 pushes
- AJ-QJ fold
- Q9 pushes
- 98,87 is repopping and getting it all-in

*Lead for (1/3 psb)
- draw, a combo draw will call
- air will bluff at weakness or fold
- JT,99 will both either call or raise depending on if they're looking for a cheap showdown or feel they may be up against an overpair and may have some fold equity.
- flopped pair + combo draw (provided that pair is not an 8) will call.
- AA-QQ are calling or raising as the paired 8's has given them 2-pair
- JJ,TT will call mostly on the hopes you have a draw as oppose to an overpair.
- T8 will reraise light most likely
- AJ-QJ will call and look for a cheap showdown
- Q9 is raising to see if his straight is still good (even though in all likelyhood if you re-raise he/she will be unable to fold)
- 98,87 is repopping it

*Check:
- draw, a combo draw will bet-out and try to take this one down. They may check behind.
- air will likely bluff
- JT,99 will both bet likely bet out to try and fold out a scared overpair.
- flopped pair + combo draw are all betting.
- AA-QQ are checking (for pot control) and equally betting for value
- JJ,TT will bet light to encourage draws but still get value
- T8 will bet
- AJ-QJ will bet for value and to try and fold out overpairs but will also check
- Q9 is betting for value and to see if his straight is still good
- 98,87 are betting for value

Checking is money here because it gives villain a chance to continue the aggression showed on the flop. There is the chance he may check behind with a draw but besides an overpair boating on us or another J coming down to give JT the lead we're not really scared of many river cards. We're also not scared of a river card killing our action because 8x is going to bet out this turn (because the board is wet) and no full is at all likely to fold the river regardless.
Our read is he is aggressive. He has been playing aggressively this hand, why try to stop it?
We check, Villain bets out $40:
Interpret the bet: its either a medium strength hand caught between the limbo of value town and trying to get to a cheap showdown or a strong/very strong hand looking for value and trying to keep you in the hand. What do we put him on now?
- draw, a combo draw would either have bet out strong or checked behind. Discount the likeliness of this holding
- air may bluff weakly, but our read is he is a decent player. Unless he's not thinking discount this as well.
- JT,99: A good player doesn't look for value with either of these hands and both don't want a showdown. Discount them as well.
- flopped pair + combo draw is betting strong not weakly. Discount as well
- AA-QQ may do this.
- JJ,TT would do this.
- T8 would do this.
- AJ-QJ would do this.
- Q9 is betting for value and to see if his straight is still good
- 98,87 are betting for value as well

Whats our next move?
If we Raise:
- AA,KK are getting it all-in. QQ may very likely fold.
- JJ,TT will get it all-in and take us for every last dime.
- T8 is not folding
- AJ-QJ is mostly folding
- Q9 is getting it all-in
- 98,87 is getting it all-in

Answer is clearly raise. We don't have much left in comparison to the pot so we push. Well played. The fact that its an easy raise doesn't mean this turn is a huge +EV. That said, getting it all in is the most +EV play at the time. Told you J8 was evil.