I would default size bigger from SB w/ my entire range. I really don't mind his setmine here given you guys are like 40 beebs eff, and he's calling 2,2bb IP w/ a pair. There isn't much of a plan needed here at all post, just fit/fold. 

Whenever i get 3bet to this sizing from the sb, i feel obsessed to defend here given the general linearity of people's small 3bet sizing oop. It's pretty easy to get stacks in post most of the times to make up for our additional investment.

Apart from that I'm not a huge fan of 3betting light to UTG open from the sb, his defendrange cruses us, we have to fold to every 4bet, and we're not getting that many folds. Also if we look at stackdistribution his UTG range should be strong enough to r/c about 3 players who have less than/around 10bb. Lastly he's a 15/12 so i'm pretty sure his range for opening UTG is going to be tight as f* even amplified w all the reshovestacks on the table.

Think the 3-bet sizing is a very large mistake and if you're 3-betting 76s, I think you're 3-betting too wide.

His flat with 88 preflop is fine.

Just because value 3-bet ranges in the sb are really strong, doesn't mean you can rep it anytime you want. You gotta keep track of your frequencies. And building a range that includes 76s probably implies that you're way too bluff heavy here.

Couple of things I thought I would bring up. First I agree with everyone about the 3 bet sizing pre but I wanted to go into a bit more detail to show why. When you make it the sizing you did in this hand you are making him call 1554 into a pot of 5736 (I had to add antes to the hand). This means he needs 27.1% to make a call breakeven. If we give you just a value range here with no bluffs so TT+, AK, AQs then he should be calling with literally every single hand he will open with from that position except for ATo if he opens that. 22 is a call. A2s is a call. 54s is a call etc etc. You are just giving him an easy decision preflop with his whole range. All he basically has to decide is what to 4b for value since turning any of his range into a 4b bluff here seems like a bit of a waste with the odds you gave him.

If you make it something like 3926 here, so basically 3x his open, he will have to call 2600 to win 6782. In this scenario he needs 38.3% to make the call breakeven. Against your same value range as above he can now only call JJ+ and AK. Firstly great....now every time he calls too wide its a mistake. However secondly it now presents us with a problem that regs will realise at some point that we have a super small and valuey range here so to combat that we need to expand our 3b range. This brings me to the next point I want to make which is about M Yoren's position that we are 3 betting too wide here if we are 3 betting 76s. I disagree that having 67s in our range here means we are way too bluff heavy. For me it seems like a perfect candidate to have in our 3b bluff range in this spot. I mean what kinda hands do we want to put in there? Against an UTG opening range which is gonna be really broadway/Big ace heavy it seems kinda stupid to be attempting to 3b bluff stuff like KQo or QJs. Stuff like A5s is a candidate but OOP v a strong range I think we are just gonna be put in a lot of tough situations and we are still only 40bbs deep to start the hand so our postflop manoeuvrability in a 3b pot still isn't gonna be great. So it seems to me that stuff like 76s is the perfect candidate to have in our 3b range here unless we are never bluffing here which also seems bad. It flops ok. Its not gonna get us in too many tricky situations, when we hit well we will be very disguised and obviously we still have a very strong range we can rep to protect when we do miss with it. Finally there are only 4 combos of these types of hands so even if we add 76s, 87s and 98s to our 3b range we still have 50 combos of value to only 12 combos of bluffs (if we use the TT+ AK, AQs range). This means people will see us turning up with these hands and those are the ones they will take note of which usually means they assume we are much more aggro than we actually are in this spot which in turn means our value range gets paid off more.

Sorry for the essay post. Dunno if I've been rambling here.......its 4am and I should really be in bed! But I hope this makes sense.

Ozzieowen, good post to explain your thought process.

The thing though, is that you are SB, the worst position possible, and you're attacking UTG, the position where ranges should and will be tighter. So in a vacuum you're definitely putting you in the situation of a uphill battle. Your argument about including 76s is sensible, but still you get to play OOP against a strong range, just that in itself seems like a pretty bad situation for me. So I wouldn't want to extend my bluff range very much, if ever, considering how shitty the spot is ; I'd rather extend my ranges where I have any strategic advantage (stack size, position, reads, etc).

As for me, I prefer to flat my whole range from the blinds (including premiums) vs early position (in full ring setting), unless I know UTG opens very wide, or I feel I have a good grasp on his game, etc. Def many ways possible to deal with those situations.

About flop play: I think you should be very wary of the flop raise, and possibly just muck your hand. Consider you wrote: 'regs will realise at some point that we have a super small and valuey range here'

Well if it's the case, what range do you think your opponent will raise on this flop after you 3b SB vs UTG? Your range looks so well defined and strong that vilain has himself a very nutted range when he do decide to raise.

So sure you have some deceptive value with 76s in this spot, but look what happens here: you end up stacking off with a weakish hand against a strong range, which IMO compounds the preflop mistake even more... I mean you stack off a 40bb stack in a situation where you're never good (you have decent equity sure, but try and construct a range for vilain, taking into account he's probably never raise/folding here... very likely that you're too big of an underdog with no FE).

Hey MrSneeze, thanks for the feedback. I understand your viewpoint here and I definitely think your strategy can work. However from my point of view I much prefer to have a 3b range here.

Reason 1 being that in most cases in MTTs people.....even tightish regs will call too wide in these spots and don't forget when they do call our range is still really value heavy. So yes in a vacuum with 76s we will be facing an uphill battle when he calls but as a part of our whole range I think it fits in nicely.

Reason 2 is that MTTs by their very nature are a form of poker where we have to accumulate all the chips in a finite amount of time. Flatting 100% here is a much lower variance way to play our range in this particular situation but it also means we win less in general with our value hands and to me creating the image and the spots where we do get paid off fully by our big hands is really important. It still really surprises me how much love MTT players have for spazzing out in situations so my philosophy is to always give them ample opportunity....creating a 3b image here with a few bluffs in it seems like a good way to do that.

Reason 3 is that we allow the BB to come into the pot profitably with a huge range of hands which creates a spot where yes we have a very strong range v the bbs range but we will be OOP the whole hand v two guys. So we have put ourselves in a position where we have to play a much more defined range against a weaker but much less defined range and a strong range both who have position on us. It just seems to me that this line will give us more headaches in the long run. I would much prefer this line if say the BB had 10 - 20bbs so he can squeeze lighter and also it makes the hand play more staight forward postflop since his stack to pot ratio will be less.

Just want to touch on your comments about the postflop play in this hand also. I didn't say anything in my first post about the flop action because I think its very player dependant. There are certainly a lot of ppl even regs who I am happy to be shoving over their raise here but a lot of ppl who are gonna be way too nutted to think about getting it in. But you say 'look what happens here' in regard to us stacking off against a strong range. However this is just one situation where our range didn't work out well for us. I don't think its fair to take one spot and use that to say that we shouldn't be taking this action. By the same token I could put an AKx flop out there and say look we folded out 88 with a c bet when we had 2 unders to his pair and it basically amounts to the same thing....one spot which is largely inconsequential when we should be thinking about what is the best strat to take as a whole.

BTW these are just my opinions. I'm very happy to be proven wrong in these spots and discussing this stuff in detail makes me think a lot more about every tiny detail of the hand so I'm really glad you came back with some great arguments for a different line.