Value Betting Pocket 8's Pre&PostFlop which turned into a Set

[HardGrind]

This was in a recent tourney. I was delt 88 so I wanted to raise inorder to know if my hand was good. Considering that I had about 11k in chips & position I felt like it would be a good time to see where everyone else was at. Opened preflop for almost 3k everyone folded except UTG. The flop came out rags so I reasoned that my 8's were still good figuring that UTG had overcards. I decided to put in another substantial raise of 3465 to see if UTG would call again, to my surprise he did (which made me semi concerned because of the str8 possibility, but I didnt suspect he would call my original preflop raise with undercards). When the 8 dropped on the turn I knew for sure that I was in the lead so I decided to check it & let UTG bluff the pot. When he bet 4k on the turn I was salivating at the mouth!!! You know I had to shove everything right there!

How was this hand played????????

I tried to convert the hand history, however the converter had trouble reading it....maybe because it was a tournament as opposed to a cash game. Sorry for the long version.


Full Tilt Poker Game #3334307490: $5 + $0.50 Tournament (24946508), Table 14 - 400/800 Ante 100 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:37:14 ET - 2007/08/22
Seat 2: pgrace (13,488)
Seat 3: rat103 (16,887)
Seat 4: chall82 (26,295)
Seat 5: yanibyrd (12,705)
Seat 6: pidge108 (20,892)
Seat 7: Bluff It All (50,333)
Seat 8: HardGrind (11,362)
Seat 9: exgritvt (4,898)
pgrace antes 100
rat103 antes 100
chall82 antes 100
yanibyrd antes 100
pidge108 antes 100
Bluff It All antes 100
HardGrind antes 100
exgritvt antes 100
yanibyrd posts the small blind of 400
pidge108 posts the big blind of 800
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HardGrind [8h 8s]
Bluff It All folds
HardGrind has 15 seconds left to act
HardGrind raises to 2,595
exgritvt folds
pgrace calls 2,595
rat103 folds
chall82 folds
yanibyrd folds
pidge108 folds
*** FLOP *** [5c 6d 3h]
HardGrind has 15 seconds left to act
HardGrind bets 3,465
pgrace calls 3,465
*** TURN *** [5c 6d 3h] [8d]
HardGrind checks
pgrace bets 4,000
HardGrind raises to 5,202, and is all in
pgrace calls 1,202
HardGrind shows [8h 8s]
pgrace shows [Ac Qc]
*** RIVER *** [5c 6d 3h 8d] [7c]
HardGrind shows three of a kind, Eights
pgrace shows Ace Queen high
HardGrind wins the pot (24,524) with three of a kind, Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 24,524 | Rake 0
Board: [5c 6d 3h 8d 7c]
Seat 2: pgrace showed [Ac Qc] and lost with Ace Queen high
Seat 3: rat103 folded before the Flop
Seat 4: chall82 (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: yanibyrd (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: pidge108 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: Bluff It All folded before the Flop
Seat 8: HardGrind showed [8h 8s] and won (24,524) with three of a kind, Eights
Seat 9: exgritvt folded before the Flop



Thanks

[jdog_ramone]

Raising 88 in EP may have been marginal, especially since you are relatively short-stacked at this stage of the tourney (M~6), but well played after that. Your flop bet was good on the relatively safe board - you are pretty sure he doesn't have a higher pocket pair because he would have reraised preflop. Villain should not have called flop bet - raise or fold. You had no option but reraise all in on the turn.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
Raising 88 in EP may have been marginal, especially since you are relatively short-stacked at this stage of the tourney (M~6),

[/ QUOTE ]

No. With M this low, and with 1200 more coming out of your stack the next couple of hands, you're looking for a hand that can either take down all the antes or gamble for all your chips. (The exception of course is if there's a BIG bubble in payout coming up, not just the chance to win half the buy-in. Then survival is much more important.) 88 is a favorite against everything except the top six pairs.

The problem with raising to "find out where you're at" is, if I know that makes up a lot of your less-than-all-in raises, I'm going to try very hard to paint a picture of where you're at that causes you to make bad decisions, e.g. by reraising. You're getting better than 3:2 (11200: 6700 or so) to call a reraise. Even if I'm fairly "honest" and only reraise AK, AQ, and 99-AA, you're getting odds to call. Therefore, I'm delighted if you decide my reraise with AQ must be pocket jacks and throw your hand away.

At these stack sizes, pushing 88 is fine. Raising it for value, determined to call a reraise or shove in your stack on the flop, is probably also fine.

[fracas]

In short, I'd say your stacks weren't truly deep enough to "see where everyone else is at." Post-flop, if you think there's a reasonable chance the flop missed your opponent, you need to move all-in with your made pair (which is, after all, an overpair to this flop, meaning you'll probably stack an opponent playing A3, A5, or A6).

[AKQJ10]

Exactly - by the time you've found out where your opponent says you're at, you're making a grave mistake to fold to the reraise unless you literally know they only reraise big pairs.

And the more I think about it the less I like my suggested value raise for less than your stack. You'll get slightly more action from 22-77 and A2-A8, but it's more important to get hands drawing live against you like J9s and KT to fold. So a preflop push is clearly in order. If you hit 99-AA, that's life, but more likely you take down the substantial antes or race with AK or AQ.

[Bullzeye]

Well while everybody is talkin about the things preflop ill talk flop. All in all i saywell played. Your bet on the flop made perfect sense because:
A.You know that he he would probably have ONLY played high cards this stage in the game and you had him beat.
B.Tiny possiblity that he even had a str8 draw. (Could you really see him callin with like 74?????

Once the turn came checking was the best choice you could have made because he could have thought:
A. You were trying to take down pot on flop and had nothing/
B. Your to scared to put all your money in now so he could hope to push you out with an all in bet.
Checking him enabled him to think that he could do these options. Nicely played.