Hi all,

Recently I've been back to the MTT grind and I could use some help ;-)
In this case preflop was ok I guess. A relative short stack (20 bb, no real reads, just 30 hands on this table) calls and sees a flop. There's only one overcard to my 88 so I should be ok most of the time against his range. That's why I CBet this flop. I can choose between these lines on the turn:

• Check/fold: That play felt too exploitable: Villain could just bet every turn with all his missed hands as well and show a nice profit.
• Check/call: I thought in this case he can go to showdown too easily with his ace high (AT/AQ) and lower pairs. In that case I lose value against worse hands and give them free cards too.
• Bet/fold: I think this is out of the question because of massive pot odds after my own bet. Villain has a pot sized bet left.
• Bet/call: So I guess I just decided I cannot fold my 88 postflop with just one overcard against a 20 bb stack, and also wanted to get more money in the pot so I bet/called.

But there's also a case for reasoning his turn bet range (if I do check) consists of only top pair (because he probably doesn't have an overpair since he called preflop) or a flopped set. But that way I probably give him too much credit.

Maybe this hand is obvious, but thanks for any advice!

Tough spot because the SPR on the flop doesn't leave much room to maneuver. No matter how you play it he's likely getting it in on the turn:
- you x/c flop, x turn and he shoves
- you bet flop, x turn and he shoves

And you're right he'll likely do this with his entire range. So I guess it comes down to how many overcards are in his range. I think he would have shoved TT+/AK pre.

You beat: 33/55-77/AQ/KQ
You lose to: 22/44/99/AJ/KJ/QJ/JT

If you bet turn he likely folds 33/55-77 and maybe the overcards, but he might just decide to shove it in with the latter. But safe to say his range when he shoves is mostly hands that crush you.

If you check turn you might induce a bluff with most of his range that can't showdown. So I think if the money is going in regardless, I prefer a turn x/c.

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I don't think it's an easy spot. Prob cbet smaller on dry board and x/f turn . sometimes we will get bluffed but fairly few V's are floating this flop with a short stack vs UTG raise

Can't really see a hand the he's bluffing with here to be honest. With his stack size a c/r looks very strong, it's polarizing for sure as the board is static, but that 10 of does bring in some draws that you don't really block. Seems like a c/f OTT. I would also probably size it smaller OTT considering that you're not going to get a J to fold very often (if at all) and if you had a J you wouldn't get called very often by a worse hand, so keeping it smaller could potentially keep worse pairs in the hand.

Without a read, would a typical villain just shove/fold the flop with missed overcards? If so then you're probably right the turn becomes a x/f.

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Thanks for your thoughts. Apparantly it's not that obvious, and I'm still not sure about the conclusion :-)
I think we have to make an assumption about whether a random (small-stakes-MTT) villain will float this flop and suddenly bluffs the turn. I'm thinking check/fold becomes a little bit better, but if he pushes on the turn (potsized bet) we would only need 2:1 to be right, so if he bluffs 33% of the time (or thinks his lower pair is good) we can call. Seems still a bit close to me.