Playing 8-8 on the button

[Boboar]

I got bounced from a Party Poker S&G last night on a hand where I thought I did nothing wrong, but just got unlucky. Wondering if anyone out there might be able to point out a mistake or make a suggestion of what I could have done differently. Here's how the hand went down:

It was the early stage of a 3 table S&G and the blinds were 15 and 30. I was on the button and held 8 8. There were several limpers before the action got to me and I decided to raise an amount that would drop some of the limpers but not marry me to the hand if I didn't like the flop. I had about 1100 in chips so I raised it to 100. I had three callers and the pot was about 475.

The flop came down: 4 5 7

First two players check and the next guy bets 100. At this point I'm liking the flop and I'm putting the bettor on either a 7 with a connector or ace kicker or some other draw to a straight or flush. His bet seemed too weak to be any strong made hand and after about 2 dozen hands I hadn't seen him make any tricky plays, so I didn't think he had the straight already. I decided to raise him to 400. The other two players fold and the bettor calls pretty quickly.

Turn card: 4

The pot is now over 1200 and he comes out betting 125. Again, I don't believe he has a strong hand so I re-raise all-in for just under 600 chips and he has me slightly covered and calls.

I don't want to post the result yet, but I do lose this hand. Can you guys find anything wrong with my analysis? Maybe some tips? I'll post the result later on.

Thanks.

[montimus]

You've got to raise more than 100 in that spot. You want to isolate the hand to other PPs and face cards.

[Boboar]

You think so? I mean, my raise was about 3.5BB's, which is my standard. Are you saying that I should increase it even more becasue of the limpers? I can see that, because you don't want people calling now simply because the pot odds are more in their favor. I usually will make that kind of play if I have a stronger hand, but with 8-8, you don't often get a lot of good flops. Also, being early in the tourney, there are a lot of guys who if the raise was 100 or 500, they'd probably call either one.

Anyway, I think your advice is good. Anything else?

[whileone]

Looks good to me. i'm guessing a low pocket pair hit his set. but anything's possible. 99 is another likely holding. don't know why they wouldn't fold that to your aggression though. maybe a slowplayed AA through JJ? I could see an A with a paired rag hanging on as well, hoping to river the ace.

36 is unlikely but anything's possible at party sng's. how fishy was the guy?

[Boboar]

Yeah, it's true that sometimes you can be up against anything, but it turns out that this guy called my pre-flop raise with a 7 3. He hit a heart on the river and busted me out.

Obviously this was a good flop for him as well, but if it's me, I'm folding my 7 3 pre-flop whether it's raised or not. If I saw the flop say, because I was the BB, I would have made a bigger bet (probably causing the 8-8 to re-evaluate and possibly fold outright) or have made a similar bet, but then re-raised the 8-8 all-in ON THE FLOP. He called three big raises by me, each time with a successively lower chance of winning. I think I was handed a pretty raw deal, but it happens.

The worst part was that he made fun of me afterward!

[SteveO]

Preflop not bad. I may have preferred to just limp as well and hit the set or dump it. On the flop, I would reraise AI or at the very least reraise the size of the pot. The pot was pretty nice on the flop and you want to just take it down w/o a fight. You have to fear the overpair, big flush draw and any 2 overcards. Club the SOB with a big reraise if he has an overpair take your medicine and move on. His play was just silly.

[quile]

In SnGs and tourneys I play extremely tight untill 1/2 the field is gone. You miss out on chips for the first 1/2 of the game but believe me. you wont get pissed off because you got got drawn out by some newb or loose player.

Each time I've used this strategy in a tourney I've made it to the final 100. A couple of times i've even set it on auto-fold for the first 45 minutes and each time i went from last in chips on the table to chip leader of the whole tourney.