88 from BB facing a BTN shove — call or fold?
The answer
Call
call it off
The math: 12bb · eights beat every non-pair and flip against the rest. easy call.
Why
The button is shoving a wide range here, with lots of unpaired hands like king-nine or queen-ten. Your pair of eights is already ahead of every one of those, and even against the bigger hands it flips a coin. That makes calling clearly profitable. There's no prize-money pressure forcing you to survive, so you don't need to fold a hand this strong. Snap it off and call.
The spot
- Your seat
- BB
- Stakes and stacks
- 1,000 / 2,000 · 12bb
- Your hand
- 8♠ 8♣
- Board
- Preflop — no board yet
- Pot
- POT · 27,000
- Action on you
- BTN shoves 12bb
Every option
Foldkeep your stack
Why not: Folding eights feels safe, and at 12 big blinds it's tempting to wait for a cleaner spot. But a pair of eights is a favorite over every unpaired hand the button jams and a coin-flip against the rest, so folding here just throws away a clearly profitable call.
Callcall it offCorrect
The idea behind it
A middle pair like eights is a strong calling hand against a short-stack shove. It beats every non-pair in the shoving range and only coin-flips against the rest. When there's no prize-money pressure telling you to survive, you call these off without a second thought.
Concept: The easy call
Terms in this spot
Play it instead of reading it
The trainer deals this hand with hints, grading and spaced repetition — and randomized variations of it once you have seen it.