Yes, too much strength for this hand is usually a flat call. But, with a board full of rags, this doesnt usually happen. At least 1/2 the time, noone else has hit anything, and when you play the 5's at stars, most of the people will not call unless they have hit something. Some will call with overs, and almost all will call with draws. If you can put your opponent on a hand, ie a mid range ace, a flush or straight draw, then you can act accordingly. But, like I said in the original post, if the flop comes 8 high, the only one I am really worried about flat calling here is the BB. And finally, this isnt about the strength of my hand, its about how scary it is to see one of the blinds bet out on a ragged flop, and how often that will take down the pot. And then on those 1 in however many times you do hit 2 pair or trips, you can usually get a little (or a lot) more. Say I completed the SB 4 times, twice at the 10/20, and twice at the 15/30 levels. That cost me 50 extra chips to see 20 cards, at least. If I bet at one flop, thats probably an extra 90, so at most I am down 140 out of 1500. If I get one flop where noone hits, I am taking a pot of 100-150, so pretty well break even. If I get a miracle flop A33, then I am probably taking some weak aces stack. Again, its not about my cards. The main reason I started this post was the excerpt from an unpublished manuscript about the SB saying NEVER complete the SB with crap just because it's cheap. All I wanted to say was, if it's cheap and you're getting more than 10:1 on your money, this is one of those few times when any 2 will actually do. Provided of course you can lay it down. Sorry if I am rambling a bit, but people seem to be really hung up on how bad 83 offsuit is, perhaps I should have used a different shite hand as my example