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Merge No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10.00/t20.00 Blinds - 8 players - View hand 1642790
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UTG: t3405.00 170.25 BBs - VPIP: 64, PFR: 36, 3B: 43, AF: 3.5, Hands: 14
UTG+1: t4190.00 209.50 BBs - VPIP: 29, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: NaN, Hands: 14
MP1: t1820.00 91 BBs - VPIP: 43, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 5.0, Hands: 14
MP2: t1320.00 66 BBs - VPIP: 29, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: NaN, Hands: 14
CO: t245.00 12.25 BBs - VPIP: 29, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: Infinity, Hands: 14
BTN: t1345.00 67.25 BBs - VPIP: 29, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: NaN, Hands: 14
SB: t1495.00 74.75 BBs - VPIP: 14, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: NaN, Hands: 14
Hero (BB): t1180.00 59 BBs - VPIP: 23, PFR: 16, 3B: 5, AF: 2.3, Hands: 3934

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with 8 9
UTG raises to t40, UTG+1 calls t40, MP1 calls t40, 4 folds, Hero calls t20

Flop: (t170) 9 3 5 (4 players)
Hero bets t130.00, UTG raises to t260, UTG+1 folds, MP1 folds, Hero raises to t1140, UTG calls t880

Turn: (t2450) 2 (2 players)

River: (t2450) 2 (2 players)

I don't like donking into an UTG raiser. Especially with the pot being multiway pot and with you risking >10% of your remaining chips. I think if you do decide to lead out, it should be smaller (85-90ish???) and you should fold to a raise. Yes, villain is quite aggressive, but from my experience, most players flat overs in this spot.

I run into this situation all the time. A player that seems aggressive min raises UTG, then leaves you guessing as to his range.

I agree with Noobalube that most players would flat overs, but most superaggressive players will test you on a flop this weak. A clue that he might actually have it this time is the smallish reraise that doesn't put much pressure on you to fold and tempts you to jam.

Is the shove on the flop a good idea? Wouldn't a call or small raise really be better? Unless you think he will call with the two over cards. I would bet for value. Using pokerstove you are a 67 to 33 favorite with this board against the top 20% of hands. I don't think he calls your shove with anything that doesn't have you beat.

Calling here with 89s is a speculative hand, the type of hand you really want to see a cheap flop with and if it hits really well stack somebody and when you miss give up easy. It is a hand a bit like a low/med pair - it either wins big or you are happy to lose little.
When you hit the top pair this is one of those inbetween points that can trap the speculator or win a few more chips. It is now a bit better than having a pocket pair of 99 on an 8 high flop, it plays a bit better but it is still weak with two cards to come.
I don't mind the raise as this is a really good flop to possibly take it down here with only two others - quite believable that you have a good hand, and the preflop aggressor has to worry about MP1. When the re-raise comes in, we don't have much info. on the villain, a min re-raise can be just AQ wanting to keep up the pressure but could easily be a decent pocket pair or an even better 9x so I would often drop it here. The alternatives, re-raise all-in is ok if hands like AQ+ AJs+ will easily be in the V. range, call and re-evaluate is possible but expensive and I don't like this too much.
The check the flop line and see is fine but play carefully - if raised I would often just drop it and wait for a better hand to make any stand. Also it will depend on the size of the tournie, I think the larger the braver you can be in these difficult borderline spots.

It is a 4-way pot, it is pretty unlikely he is bluffing.

Think about it this way--if you go all in on the flop, can any worse hands call? You'll end up folding out his bluffs and getting called by overpairs.

If I led, I would end up calling the minraise and hoping for one of the favorable turns that can come for our hand.

I would probably check/call a half pot bet on the flop but fold to a larger bet. Leading is just a way to get some information, which might be reasonable at small stakes, but I would tend to check/call just because of how passive players probably are in small stakes 180s and other MTTs. They're not going to bluff you off of the best hand very often and will let your marginal hands get to showdown more than they should.

Ok. So you decide you are best here. What is the best move to get the most value? Call the bet and reevaluate on the turn. Shoving or making a small raise?

From my perspective-

Shoving is bad, because he folds almost all worse hands and calls with better.

Calling allows him a chance to hit an overcard that beats us- plus he can bluff on just about any scare card. About half the cards in the deck are scare cards.

I think I would just min-raise back and if he shoves I call. Of course this is if I think I'm ahead on the flop. I don't think he can fold two overs to a min-raise. He will likely call or shove.

I think your assumption about how he'll play overcards to a raise is pretty ambitious. He'll most likely call or fold to a minraise and almost never suicide bluff.

I'm not convinced. Look how weak we look in this position. Were shortstacked and just call out of the big blind. Its an uncoordinated rainbow flop. If I had a Broadway hand I could play it this way. A lot of bad players would pay us off with a number of hands we beat. What I don't like is we have no information about the strength of the raisers hand. But if we are going to call out of the blind this is where we end up. I think I throw this away and remind myself not to autocall out of the big blind.

I think this is a great hand to call preflop vs 3 others (I misread and missed one caller earlier, and so it does make the flop min re-raise look strong and the flop lead out less appealing). I would call preflop with 89s, even in an STT, but I would be playing it as a very speculative hand and would not want to get caught often with just top pair.

As played, I don't really like the line of calling this flop re-raise much, we have about 5 outs to a hand that is very likely ahead and another, say 10 outs, that give the hand a good equity boost but is still behind (assuming V. is ahead now). We will nearly always face a turn raise and by then the pot is 690. Calling any turn bet with the drawing hands is going to be fully committing with our stack so it might as well be allin. If the bet was allin we would need about 35% to call, if the turn was a partial out say 2c we would only have ~30% (vs say JJ+,A9s) . It does seem pretty close as the 5 often good outs are a plus and there is a very faint chance of V is doing a crazy bluff, but also we will most often wiff completely

I think I would just min-raise back and if he shoves I call. Of course this is if I think I'm ahead on the flop. I don't think he can fold two overs to a min-raise. He will likely call or shove.

I'll try some reasoning about the optimal line if for some reason I was convinced I was ahead on the flop. If the V had overcards, say ATs+,KJs+,AJo+,KQo, (~ 13% to hit on the next card) then if V. felt that hitting an overcard was likely to win it would be reasonable to call a small 4-bet on this flop as the rest, implied, could easily follow in the pot. I would guesstimate that anything less than 300 would not be a large mistake for V. to call (if V. thought hitting either card was good).
If you 4-bet 300 extra the pot if called on the turn is 1290 and you have 580 left, you only need 24% equity to carry on at this point so you would be very committed, effectively the 300 is allin. Anything less than 300 and the V. might be able to fold to a turn shove (losing some value here but gaining safety). I like this size of bet (an extra 300) but one problem with it is it looks just about as strong as an allin.
I don't think there is very big difference between the allin line and the raise 300 line. you will probably get nearly the same folds. I am no expert on this, personally, with these stacks and a weak hand, I prefer the allin a little here just to avoid any difficult decision I would have on the turn but it is probably more optimal chipwise to go for the 300 extra line.
I often play STTs and in these it is usually fine to favour the safest line rather than chip optimal as you can often reach your goal by avoiding confrontations while allowing the others to kill each other. So in these the brutal,less subtle line of allin is more often used.

Good analysis. I use the all in probably too much. I think that lets our opponents off easy sometimes, but must be done for consistency and balance. I like to maximize my opportunities to build up chips and any little edge can make a big difference.

What stakes are you playing? If you're playing small stake/buy in tourneys, then you don't need to worry about balance as most people at those stakes are just playing the two cards in front of them.

That may be true, but its pretty exploitable to change bet sizing based on the strength of your hand. If I would shove my bluffing range then I should shove my value range as well. Plus I play at all stakes so while you can move away from unexploitable to a more optimal line I would be cautious in doing so.

Yeah, but you only need to worry about that when it comes to playing against regs. When you're in a hand with a weaker player, it's ok to size your bets according to hand strength.

punch line, we basically never allow villain to make a mistake playing the hand this way