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In Stud 8 6th street, I have a made 8-4 low (A-2-3-4-8) and no high; my opponent shows K-Q-K-9 and bets. Call or raise?
Heads-up, PokerToast's limit Stud 8 solver raises with a made 8-4 low and no high against open Kings 100.0% of the time.
The spot
- Game: heads-up limit Stud 8, 6th street.
- You: (A♠ 2♦) 3♣ 4♥ 8♦ K♠ (down cards in brackets): A-2-3-4-8 (a made 8-4 low; a 5 would make a wheel and a 5-high straight for high, a 6 a 6-4 low, a 7 a 7-4 low) and a King; no real high hand yet.
- Your opponent: shows K-Q-K-9 (an open pair of Kings) and bets 2 small bets into a pot of 8.3 (up: K♥ Q♣ K♦ 9♠).
- Pot before this street: 8.3 small bets.
- Pot size and the numbers: the solver groups pots by size, and its numbers here are averages over every pot bigger than 5 small bets at this point (often much bigger), so the "worth" values can be larger than this exact pot could pay. The ranking of the plays is what to take from them.
The solver's numbers
| Play | How often (strategy) | Worth from here on (EV estimate, small bets) |
|---|---|---|
| Raise | 100.0% | +6.28 |
| Fold | 0.0% | +0.00 |
| Call | 0.0% | +6.16 |
Measured on 1,584 play-outs of this situation. The highlighted row is the play that measured best.
Why, in plain words
Raise and call are worth about the same here (0.12 small bets apart, within the measuring noise of about 0.23), so neither is a real mistake; the solver's usual choice is to raise (100.0%).
What popular strategy articles say
We found no published answer to this exact spot (AI search, checked 2026-10-08).
Among the sources AI search surfaced, the numbers on this page are the only direct answer to this spot.
Heads-up vs multiway
The numbers above are for heads-up play (two players). Most published advice is written for full-ring games with several players in the pot, so part of any difference can come from that.
We also looked up a 3-handed version (the open Kings bet and a third player showing T-8-7-6 calls before you act) in PokerToast's 3-handed solver, but it has not measured that spot often enough, so this page makes no claim about multiway pots.
How these numbers were made
From PokerToast's own heads-up limit Stud 8 solver, trained 7,862,000 iterations, exported 2026-10-05 09:56:29, 47,383 situations (version E-7862000-20261005095629). It learned by self-play (Monte Carlo counterfactual regret minimization) for limit betting, at most four bets a street.
- How often is the solver's average strategy for this situation.
- Worth (EV) is an estimate measured after training by playing the situation out many times against the solver's own strategy: small bets won or lost from this decision on, compared with folding (0). It assumes an opponent who plays like the solver.
- Hand groups: the solver groups similar hands, so the numbers are for the group (here:
3|A/M2|P2|L|b), not only these exact cards. For each decision it looks at the street; your high hand (and flush draw); your low (made, or how many low cards you have and how many of the ones you need are dead); your opponent's board (a pair or an ace showing, and how many high cards they have for the low); the pot; and the betting so far on this street. - Stakes: ante 0.15 small bets per player, bring-in 0.25, a completion or bet on 3rd and 4th street is 1 small bet, 2 from 5th street.
- Looked up when this page was built (2026-10-19); a newly trained solver changes the page and its version number.
Practice it
Your equity with these cards Today's Stud 8 Daily Spot Open PokerToast
Part of: Stud 8 after 3rd street: one-way hands, scooping and splitting
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