Greetings! This past weekend I played in Global Poker's Micro Thunder Series main event tournaments. This is a relatively deep stacked format with 10 minute blinds, but a pretty low buy-in.

We are nowhere near a bubble, 23rd in chips out of 514 at the time of this hand.

Current Level is 75/150 [15]

EP limps with 10.5k behind.
Hero, in LJ (32k) raises to 660 w/ AhKh
Button (36k) flats.

Blinds and limper all fold. Pot is 1830

Flop is 9c Js Qs

I'm not happy with this flop. My range is already pretty tight and doesn't contain a great deal of Q, J, T, or 9x but villain's range does. Sure, I can have all the sets and some straights here but I think I'm checking my entire range in this spot. Villain checks behind.

Turn is Td.

I've seen worse turns. I briefly consider checking but it would be a disaster to be checked behind again so I decide to bet 1189. I reason that I have a lot of AsXs combos to balance with and villain can have some two pairs and kings in their range. BU tanks a bit and calls.

River is 7h, we still have the nuts. Pot is 4208 and effective stack size is 30k (Villain has us covered by 4k).

What's your play? Which hands are you balancing with? Do we even care about balance at this stage of a Microstakes MTT?

I like the check on the flop. Turn sizing could be a bit larger, but its fine. On the river just bet full pot and hope to get called by an 8 or K. I think the problem with overbetting is that sometimes people will actually fold an 8 here. The advantage of not overbetting is also the fact that you will sometimes get called by 2 pair or set.

One last thing: This is a microstakes MTT. This is really the wrong place to apply any GTO concepts or even think about balancing. Just play straight forward in the early stages.
In the mid- to late stages start stealing blinds more aggressively, C-bet and two barrel more often in good spots with reasonable made hands / draws.
Once you get shorter stacked, know your openshoving / reshoving ranges.
Finally, make no ICM punts once you reach the final table and wait for others to do stupid things

Appreciate the response. Agree with the turn bet being bigger. In the moment I wanted to just shove and hope to get called by a K, so instead I opted for a "conservative" 150% pot bet.

I also had abandoned the basic questions of "what am I trying to get called by" and was lucky to get snapped by worse. I can't see what they had specifically because of how Global's hand histories work, but I'm going to assume they had some end of the straight.

I agree that I shouldn't really be trying to apply GTO concepts but I want to stay in the practice of thinking about these things and adjusting as an exploit, so I try to ask the question. In my above bet I later asked myself what my bluffs were and I had a hard time thinking of any. A low pocket pair is about all.

I also appreciate the additional tips. I've found that I need to refresh myself on ICM ranges at the final table as I've made a couple plays that ICMizer says is slightly losing, which probably makes it a huge punt at the micros. I don't need to take marginal spots when others will make huge mistakes for me.