I've been revising my pokertracker categories and was interested in hearing thoughts concerning the quality of pair wraps.

Looking at the odds, these seem to me the bottom end of the premium hands spectrum, they are doubtless premium hands if they have complete closure and particularly if they're ds. So, I've concluded that 8876ds, 8776ds or 8766ds are, innocuous as they may seem, in actuality "play to the felt" hands. It probably wouldn't be a mistake to play those to the felt even if they're ss (although I'm not going that far).

But what my questions are regarding these is how to assess the value of these hands when there are holes in them. Specifically, how much does the location of the pair and/or the location of the hole really matter.

Examples:

If the hole is on bottom, I still think 8775r is auto-limp UTG and capable of holding up even to a big raise (?).

On the other hand, if the hole is on top, I'd probably try to limp with 8665r, but I'm not sure I'd call a big raise even with 8665ds, particularly against a player who is likely to raise big on a lot of wraps. I think you end up drawing to the low end of a straight too often on that one.

Also, to what extent is something like 8664 even really playable except in LP for a limp?

I really like these hands in shorthanded games, especially since middle sets and smaller flushes go up a lot in value there. In full ring games, I'm playing them in MP/LP, but often pretty cautiously, as the number of flops that give you a bettable hand is more limited then when you have, say TJQQ.

lol... Remember our discussion not too long ago where I advocated pitching them entirely and you were defending them, Monk?

Anyhow, what made a believer out of me was the simulation against AAKKds. They did worse little worse than the wraps and suit wraps, but were just noticeably better than 2:1. I was surprized.

Your thinking is also pretty much in line with mine. I really think the hole hurts these things more than it does a wrap. As I see it, you have a 3-card wrap with the pair located just somewhere in it. So, without closure on top (whether it be 8875, 8775 or 8755 doesn't seem to me to matter a lot), you've just go a 875 hand.

Studying these hands a bit more, I discovered a few things.

First, they don't really hit the flop hard all that often in terms of straight draw. I think this does speak against raising them, as they're a small percentage anyway.

Second, if the pair wrap has full closure, the location of the pair doesn't matter as far as I can tell in terms of nut draws. Where it IS an advantage to have the pair ON BOTTOM (all else seems the same) is that there is one more nut straight in there with set.

For example: 8876. Here, there are two nut straights including the 8--namely 458 and 589.
8776, also two: 754 and 579.
But with 8766 there are 3 of them: 654, 569 and 69T.

So, with the pair on bottom, you have a little edge in terms of frequency of hitting nut straight with really the biggest redraw possible (since boat beats flush and has better odds of hitting anyway).

Third: Where these things do really well is against an unpaired monster wrap. Here, I ran 6778r against 3678r on a board of K54. Well, 8763r is normally about as good as it gets there as a wrap, pretty much a coinflip against KK if it's all-in on the flop. But not against 6778r, which is a 2.1:1 favorite.

Fourth, holes detract enormously from the value of these hands and it becomes a lot more important for the pair to be on bottom. Nonetheless, looking at what you can actually hit, I think you put a hand like 7664 or 7644, the latter being better, about on par with a pretty junky JJ-KK. In other words, if you play these hands to a decent-sized raise, you need to be getting very good pot odds.