How to Play King-Eight Suited in Cash Games

King-Eight suited (K8s) is a decent starting hand in cash games.

It can be profitable if played correctly, but many players make mistakes with it.

In this article, I’ll show you when it’s appropriate to enter the pot with K8s, along with six tips for playing it postflop. Let’s dive in!

How to Play K8s Preflop

Before jumping into postflop scenarios, let’s first examine how to play K8s preflop in a variety of common situations. Here are the positions that will be referenced in this section:

Unopened Pots

K8s is strong enough to be open-raised from the Lojack onwards, meaning every position if you are playing in a 6-max game. If you are playing a full-ring game, it should be folded from the first three positions (UTG through UTG+2).

Against a Raise

Your decision when facing a raise depends on your position and the position of the raiser. Let’s break this down into two scenarios:

1. When you’re in Middle Position through Small Blind

This is where I see most mistakes. K8s is simply too weak to play from these positions against a raise — you should always fold.

2. From the Big Blind

When you’re in the Big Blind facing a raise, you should always call. The combination of better pot odds and closing the action (meaning no risk of a squeeze) makes calling the correct play.

Against a 3-Bet

If you raise with K8s from the Lojack through Cutoff, you should always fold when faced with a 3-bet. However, in low-rake games, against people who 3-bet with optimal ranges, you can occasionally call with K8s versus 3-bets when you are on the Button or in the Small Blind.

3 Tips for Playing K8s When You Miss the Flop (As the Preflop Raiser)

Tip #1: In Multiway Pots, Always Start With a Check

Multiway pots call for a more passive approach than heads-up pots because the chances of someone holding an extremely strong hand increase.

For this reason, if at least one player has position on you, a good general rule is to check 100% of your hands. While betting strong hands and draws isn’t a major mistake, it’s often simpler to check everything and implement a robust check-raising strategy.

Tip #2: When You Flop a Straight Draw, Always Bet

When you have a hand like Ks8s and the flop comes 9s7h6d, you should always bet in single-raised pots.

The main reason is simple: You have a strong open-ended straight draw that can improve to the best hand by the river. The second benefit to betting is that you can make stronger hands fold, like Ace-high or strong King-high hands.

Tip #3: With a Backdoor Flush or Straight Draw, You Should Fire a Bet Very Often

Backdoor straight draws or flush draws allow you to utilize a more aggressive c-betting strategy. The reason is that these draws enable you to continue bluffing if the turn gives you a real draw. 

Moreover, when the turn is an overcard and you’re in position, you can continue barreling — even if you didn’t hit your draw. This is because you’ll start having many value hands, which allows you to bluff more. 

3 Tips for Playing K8s When You Hit the Flop (As the Preflop Raiser)

Tip #1: Bet the Flop and Check the Turn When You Flop Top Pair with the 8 (Single-Raised Pot in Position)

When you have Kx8x on an 8-high board, your top pair is very vulnerable to overcards. Because of this, you should bet to protect your equity.

This is especially true on flops with a flush draw, as any overcard or flush-completing card can significantly devalue your hand. 

Tip #2: Lean Towards Checking When Out of Position on 8-High Flops

When playing out of position, you are at a disadvantage because you’re not controlling the action. Many of your hands on these low, 8-high boards are non-made hands, especially since much of your open-raising range consists of double Broadway hands.

If you don’t start checking with some stronger hands like Kx8x, your check-folding frequency will become too high.

Tip #3 If You Have Two Pair, But a Straight or Flush Completes on the Turn, You Can Check

When you have a strong hand in poker, you should almost always lean towards betting.

However, once you bet on the flop and get called, you can narrow your opponent’s range by filtering out much of their trash hands. When a new class of strong hands, like straights or flushes, appears on the turn, the value of your two pair decreases significantly. In this situation, you should often check.

Take a look at an example from Lucid Poker: you raised from the Button, the Big Blind called, and the flop came Kd8d5c.

You bet 30% of the pot on the flop, got called, and then the turn brings the 4d.

Here’s how the solver plays K8s (check out the bottom right):

You can see here that the solver mixes between betting and checking, checking around a third of the time. This is because the hand has now become a two-street value hand. This hand class can either bet now and check back on the river, or check now and bet on the river.

Final Thoughts

K8s can be a profitable hand if played correctly. Follow the tips I’ve shared, and you’ll increase your profits with this hand.

Did you enjoy this article? Let me know in the comments below. Also, if you have a particular hand you’d like to see covered on this blog, feel free to let me know.

Until next time, good luck, grinders!

If you’d like to learn how to play other tricky hands like 43 suited, check out this article here.