Medium pocket pairs - live game - hand 1

[pswnio]

Later stages of a rebuy. 11 players left - when next one goes, it's final table time. Your table is five handed. Average chipstack 46k, you have 60k. Blinds are at 2k/4k.

You are the small blind. You have a tight aggressive image at the table; you haven't been caught bluffing, you haven't made many pre flop raises and you haven't made a pre-flop re-raise since the early stages of the tournament. You've only played one hand in the last 20 minutes or so.

UTG, who you just about have covered, makes it 16k to go. He seems a decent player; fairly tight-agg, doesn't ever limp in. You think he's capable of letting a half decent hand go although you haven't seen him do it.

You look down to see 88. What's your move?

[temp0r]

it's clearly a push or fold. obviously JJ-99 is within his hand range for making a 4x the BB raise under the gun. and there could be even higher pairs or re-raising hands (e.g. AK behind you)
so you have to fold really. you can't lose what you don't put in. however if for some reason only 3 pay out in this tournament i'd be tempted to re-raise all-in. but 15x the BB is very playable on the bubble of a final table.

[Graham C]

I'd fold.   I'm making the final table here and a pair of 8's isn't a playable hand in this situation for me.

[maldini32]

pass

[pswnio]

So that's three folds so far, then. I pushed. The raiser took about 5 years to muck his hand, to my delight and relief. He flipped over 33. Maybe my move was a little bit "brave".

[temp0r]

yeah but his raise with that hand at that stage of a tournament from that position was stupid.