DECISION POINT: You are 3-handed at the Final Table of a World Poker Tour tournament with payouts of $192K for 1st, $119K for 2nd, and $86K for third. The blinds are 60,000/120,000 and you are last in chips with 31.5BBs. You raise from the Button to 250K with A♥3♥ and both opponents call. The Small Blind goes all-in on the A♠4♠7♣ flop, the Big Blind folds, and action is on you. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are at the final table of a major tournament 3-handed. The final payouts are: first $192k, second $119k and third $86k. We are in last place starting the hand with 3.8 million in chips. At this blind level we have more than 30 big blinds which is still a very playable stack. Our stack is more than half the total of the chip leader who holds 7.15 million in chips and just slightly behind second place who has 4.4 million in chips.

Blinds are 60,000/120,000 and we are dealt Ah3h on the Button. We elect to make a standard raise to 250,000 chips and both Blinds just call. When both Blinds just flat call this caps the preflop range on both players. The Small Blind is unlikely to just call and give the Big Blind such great pot odds with strong hands and the Big Blind is also unlikely to let everyone see a cheap flop when they hold a huge hand.

The Big Blind is actually likely to 3-bet a pretty wide range here as they would put tremendous pressure on both players with even just a small raise. Three-betting would make both players feel as if they were playing for all their chips in a situation where neither would like to play a big pot preflop and risk busting out next.

The flop is As4s7c and the Small Blind moves all-in for 4.15 million chips into a 750k pot. Betting over 5x the size of the pot is a very nonstandard play.

Seeing this large of an overbet likely means that the Small Blind is very content to just take the pot down now, and feels their hand is strong enough to warrant encouraging action while at the same time is not weak enough to fold at any point postflop. On this particular board the Small Blind's overbetting range likely means some sort of strong ace that fears the flush and potential straight draws on the board, or a significant draw that is playing their hand like a semi-bluff.

When faced with a large overbet in a spot like this where we have a tough decision and are facing ICM pressure is to evaluate both the best and worst case outcomes possible in this scenario. If we’re up against something like JsTs in this case we’d be a 61.1% favorite, which is the likely best case scenario. If we are up against a bigger draw such as 6s5s our opponent is actually a 52.32% favorite, and If the Small Blind is overbetting this flop with something like AdTd they become a 82.2% favorite. We also have to consider the fact that the Small Blind pushed into two players, one of which could potentially end their tournament.

Based on these assumptions and since we don’t have any defining opponent specific behaviour that further defines the Small Blind’s range, our estimated best case is a 60/40 favorite while our worst is an 80/20 underdog. Additionally this is a tournament situation making it more likely that even if our opponent is on a draw, it’s much more likely to be some sort of 10+ out combo draw. While on the outset this situation may have looked like a close decision whether we should call the Small Blind’s all-in with our pair of aces on the flop, given the situational factors at this final table this decision becomes more obvious as a straight forward fold.

Folding is the best play.