DECISION POINT: You are the short stack at your table with 25BBs in the middle stages of a live daily multi-table tournament. First to act you raise to 2,100 (2.1BBs) with J♠T♠. It folds to the Button who calls and both Blinds fold. The flop comes Q♠8♥6♦ and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are in the middle stages of a daily live multi-table tournament. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. We are the shortest stack at our table with 25 big blinds to start the hand and we are dealt J♠T♠ Under the Gun (UTG).

At this stack depth from early position we will be opening with a narrow range of hands, and suited broadway hands are easily strong enough to be included in that range. We make a standard open to 2,100 and everyone folds to the Button who flat calls. Both Blinds fold and we’re off to a flop of Q♠8♥6♦.

At first glance, this may seem to be a flop that connects well with our opponent’s range, however taking a closer look we actually have a significant range advantage on this board.

The Button’s range when they flat call an early position raise at 25BBs effective should be fairly condensed and include lots of pairs, suited Ax hands, and some bigger off-suit Ax hands, as well as some suited broadway and middle suited connectors. The Button would almost certainly reraise preflop with big pairs, so much of their range actually consists of Ace-high hands and pairs less than a QQ.

We also have a significant nut advantage as we can have QQ, 88, and 66 while our opponent is unlikely to have QQ (but can have 88 and 66). Additionally we have increased equity with the benefit of an inside straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. That translates to many opportunities for us to improve on the turn and allows us to put a lot of immediate pressure on our Button’s Ax hands and smaller pairs by making a continuation bet.

In fact, our advantage is so strong that we should be continuation betting this board almost 70% of the time, and our hand in particular is a great candidate. As far as which bet sizing is appropriate, with our range and nut advantage given the stack sizes we can bet a little larger and increase sizing to around half pot.

Continuation betting half pot is the best play.