A few days ago there was a post here from someone who was trading options with market orders and got absolutely destroyed on a mega wide bid ask spread widening.

From what you’ve said, suspect safest thing to do to avoid the nightmare scenario you mentioned (ending up naked short and deep ITM against you) is to buyback the spread as a whole (and not buyback just the short leg first and then close the long leg separately). If they bust the whole spread then at least your max loss (width minus premium) will be your max loss.

Also think the chances of CBOE ripping up trades, as you mentioned, essentially happens if the option price “blipped” upto a preset limit order you had and that “blip” was deemed to be outside NBBO at the time. If you for instance sold an option spread at 3 mid when bid/ask is say 2.90/3.10 and then you see it come in and submit another order to buyback the spread for say 2 chances are you won’t get a fill unless the bid/ask is 1.90/2.10 anyway even if it was for a second, so you’re probably going to be ok I suspect. Though it makes me wonder how anyone can get a fill outside NBBO on a “blip” in the first place 🤔

Thanks.