TPTK shorthanded

[Jake (The Snake)]

3 players left so its actually almost a tourney situation (though we are playing NL cash game).

Hero ~$28.00
BB ~$28.00
Dealer ~$45.00

Hero is SB with ATo

Dealer calls BB of $.50
Hero raises to $1.50
BB folds
Dealer calls $1.00

Flop is: T 7 7 rainbow

Hero bets $5.00
Dealer is All-in

Before the all-in the dealer put on a big show which seemed to me to indicate strength (I thought I had remembered him doing something similar in a previous session). I ended up folding after a long thought but a strong NL player told me after that I have to call there. I have a few questions:

Should I have called? With three players TPTK is very strong but what could his range of hands be to go all-in? I seriously doubted a bluff here but I suppose it was possible.

Also, the NL player told me that $5 was an "overbet." I don't really understand this concept or what it means. Is it too much of a bet? Why or why not?

[NaobisDad]

Seems like your friend was trying to say you overbet the pot with that 5 dollars into a 3.50 pot.

As for the hand. You get about 7 - 5 on your call. So you have to think you'll win this enough times to make a profit (which is about 40% of the time).
The thing I think makes this hand tricky is that you overbet the pot and show some strenght there. What does the Dealer put you on? (Does he read hands at all?) I wouldn't be too surprised to see JJ here or any big pocketpair. A ten wouldn't surprise me either.
I think you can call here, unless you have a dead read on the dealer, which of course only you know.

PS. Shorthanded, I like to be a little more aggressive with preflop raises. 3xbb is not that much, certainly not for a guy holding about 100bb, it's less than 5% of his stack for him to call in a situation where he has a pretty good idea of what you have, and you have no idea of what he has. Would you really be surprised to see a hand like 76 here?
Determine a standard raise. Something like 8bb, or anything between 5% - 10% of your stack. I think that will improve your results.

[Leo Bello]

You have to change your concepts to play short-handed. One of them, is always move thinking on stacks. short handed there is a huge numbers of hands he could have called you with, A7 suited being one I would have called there. Raise more pre-flop. Bet pot on flop.

[Jake (The Snake)]

To the overbet concept...

Is this a bad spot to overbet and is overbetting generally not a good idea? I don't quite understand the concept and how it relates to the hand.

If I were the dealer, I would probably put the SB on a low pair or overcards when he bets the $5.00. Is this wrong?

[Jake (The Snake)]

Also to the overbet point...

If I had made a pot-sized bet instead and he pushed, what do I do then?

What if he calls, the turn is a blank, I make another pot-sized bet and he pushes?

[DOMIT]

[ QUOTE ]
To the overbet concept...

Is this a bad spot to overbet and is overbetting generally not a good idea? I don't quite understand the concept and how it relates to the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Overbetting the pot just kills the action (unless, as in this case, there are probable monsters). By overbetting the pot, you're usually only going to get called with something that can beat you. To get more $$ for your hands, you need to be more like 1/2 pot. Your competition doesn't have odds to draw out, if they're behind, but many people will call those bets and that's where you make your money.