DECISION POINT: In the middle stages of a mid-stakes daily tournament you are the shortest stack at your table and are dealt A♠J♥ in the Big Blind. The blinds are 1,000/2,000 and action folds to the player in the Hijack who opens to 4,200. The Cutoff folds, the Button calls, the Small Blind folds, and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a mid-stakes daily tournament. It's starting to get to the later stages of the tournament with around 40% of the field left. The blinds are 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 big blind ante and we are the shortest stack at our table with 50,000 chips. We are dealt A♠J♥ in the Big Blind. Everyone folds to the Hijack who opens to 4,200. The Cutoff folds, the Button calls, and action is on us.

Many players are far too content to just call out of the Big Blind in this scenario, and that is a huge mistake. When we close the action and are guaranteed to see a flop cheaply it seems prudent to just put in the additional 2,200 chips and call, however let’s examine the situation more closely.

Our first step is to take a look at a typical GTO response from a solver for this situation and see what the preferred strategy is. The outputs from the solver prefer aggression with 90% of the range all-in and 10% non all-in raise. Given the majority of hands in this spot prefer an all-in sizing, we can default to all-in with our entire range to simplify our strategy.

In addition, if we raise here from the Big Blind we’re not supposed to fold unless both other players go all-in. If we raise and just get called in one (or both) spots we can only assume the same positive expected value as moving all-in if we play postflop perfectly.

The Hijack should be opening the pot with a lot of hands in this scenario. Their first-in range will contain 25-30% of hands by default, which includes many worse Ax and Jx combinations that we dominate. The Button’s typical calling range in this spot includes 15-20% of hands as well, many of which we also dominate. There are already 13,400 chips in the middle which represents over a 25% increase to our starting stack at the beginning of this hand.

So, we are likely ahead of our opponents' ranges and stand to make a significant amount of chips in relation to our stack if both opponents fold. If we choose to flat call with AJo we have to play the entire hand out of position and will be against two opponents.

Calling here is definitely a profitable play, however squeezing all-in against a wider late position range and a Button flat call is a much more profitable play in the long run.

Moving all-in is the best play.