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1/3 NL game at the local casino. It's a typical game, no real tough players and no really bad players. Generally everyone is a bit loose/passive to varying degrees.

Relevant reads:

Button ($375): middle age white guy. He's been quite and seems to be paying attention to the game. One of the tighter players in the game, but still probably too loose. He's limped and folded to my raise preflop a handful of times. One hand ~30 minutes ago he opened to $15 in the CO, I 3bet/folded to his 4bet. He did not show. I do not recall much from him in ways of showdowns.

Hero (covers): I've been at the table for about 2 hours. I've mostly been raising when entering hands preflop. A couple of players have gotten annoyed because they "want to see the flop cheap," though button hasn't verbalized anything. First hand of my session I flopped the nut straight 5 ways. I bet flop and bet/shoved turn and chopped pot with another player.

Hand: Hero is dealt 8 4 in BB

Preflop: 5 players limp to Hero who checks.

Flop ($18): J 8 8
Hero bets $15, fold, EP players calls, folds to button who raises to $30, Hero calls, EP calls.

I'm not sure if I made a mistake here or not. I thought 3betting turns my hand face up, so I decided to flat and donk a turn blank. At this point I thought button had some type of Jx hand and EP had a draw or possible 8x.

Turn($108): A
Hero bets $65, EP folds, button shoves ~$280, Hero...?

Obviously have to reevaulate the range I gave button on the flop.

With five limpers, it's not going to be that uncommon for someone to have the 8. I know live players are bad and if the board runs out 6 3 on the turn/river, you can sometimes get three streets of value from hands as bad J 5, 9 9, A 6, etc. But I think your hand is not likely to do great when a third bet goes in. So I'd consider check/calling the flop. (With this particular board texture I am quite inclined to lead out because there are so many draws to get value from. But the principle holds for other less drawy board textures, such as changing the J in this hand to the K.) If you lead out, you need to proceed very cautiously when raised. A tightish conservative player is unlikely to be raising Jx on the flop and is very likely to raise 8x because he is aware (and petrified) of the draws that are present. (Similarly, I doubt EP is slowplaying / playing cautiously with 8x. Live players with trips on this board are not thinking "Gee I don't want to get my whole stack in when only trips with a better kicker will give me action." They are thinking "zomg I have trips and there are draws out there. Like hell I am going to let anybody outdraw me and take MY pot away from me.") And you're in a sucky spot because you have equity versus 8x, but most of it is chopping equity, so you really don't have odds to realize it.

I think his turn shoving range is entirely 8x or better and if you do the math, you probably have to fold. Even though some of his range will be hands like 8 6 and 9 8. And I would be more inclined to discount A8 or J8 than I would those 8x hands (I think he'll limp a wide range of 8x hands on the button) because his turn shove size is basically "I have the best hand, but I am terrified a diamond or spade is going to come out" even though it does not rationally make sense that you have a draw. Anyway, I think the turn lead is really bad. I think even a fair number of bad live players will have the sense to fold Jx if you lead out again.

This is definitely a tricky spot because I don't think you ever get bluff raised by worse than 8x if you lead out, but you'll get raised every time someone has 8x and it puts you in a crappy spot of having to fold your equity share. There's a certain point where your kicker is good enough that you welcome getting action and a certain point where your kicker is so bad you have a clear fold (seems like the case here). But there's definitely kickers in the middle area where leading out maximizes your equity versus one pair hands and draws, but puts you in a gross spot equity wise versus the aggression of the other trips hand.

TBH the flop might be a fold and as played the turn is a super easy fold.

The more I think about it the more I think a flop fold is correct. Also I wouldn't donk the turn, I think you are going to get raised way too often and just have to fold when that happens.

Thank you for your replies.

@shuttle - can you elaborate more as to why you think a fold on the flop is correct? I'm not saying it's bad, but in my experience most flop min-raises are top pair/medium-weak kicker type of hands.

After the flop action I really thought my hand was best a good percentage of the time. If I was heads up on the turn with the button I think I would have c/c a reasonable bet. However I thought EP was drawing and wanted to charge him, hence the turn donk. I guess it was a balancing act between trying to protect what was already in the pot vs trying to protect my stack and I decided to go with the former. This was my thought process at the time. Obviously it appears I misread the situation quite a bit.

@shuttle - can you elaborate more as to why you think a fold on the flop is correct? I'm not saying it's bad, but in my experience most flop min-raises are top pair/medium-weak kicker type of hands.

People minraise some spots with top pair weak kicker but not this spot where it's multiway and someone has already called. A lot of players just call this spot here with a TP type hand in this situation. This makes his range mostly trips+ and occasionally strong draws, vs that range it's almost impossible for you to get to showdown here without improving. And you might hit say a 4x on the turn and still lose. So it's just not a great spot for you.

I think the hardest thing to deal with is folding trips here.

Also should be noted, if you have a live read or more info here then by all means this should sway your decision a lot.

I think I'm leading this flop about 100% of the time myself, and likewise I'm also going to call the minraise.

That being said though when it still goes 3 ways to the turn, I think I'd probably C/C here. Since more then half of the table saw the flop it's entirely possible we're against another 8, and likely with a better kicker.

I still think we have some pretty decent showdown value though.

+1 shuttle. In that situation live 1/3, a min raise is trouble. I'd expect K8 as a minimum, most likely JJ. I definitely fold on the turn as played.

Shuttle - thanks for the explanation. It makes sense.

Results: I ended up folding on the turn. Before I folded I thought for a few moments and began to try to level myself into thinking there was a decent chance villain had AJ. Fortunately I thought the better of it. Villain did not show.