DECISION POINT: You are playing an online tournament with a mix of recreational players and solid regulars. Blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante and most of the table stacks are between 10BBs - 30BBs. The first player to act, who you know to be an aggressive and solid regular, moves all-in for 9BBs. Action folds to you in the Cutoff seat with a 17BB stack and you look down at 8♥8♠.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a mid-stakes online series event with a mix of skilled regular players and recreational players. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. We start the hand with just over 17 big blinds and most of the stacks at the table are between 10 and 30 big blinds.

We are dealt 8♥8♠ in the Cutoff seat and the UTG player, who is an aggressive and solid regular, moves all-in for 9,460 chips (just over 9 big blinds). Action folds around and we have a decision to make.

If this was one of the recreational players at the table who is likely incapable of shoving an appropriately wide hand range at this stack depth, we could exploitatively fold. Skilled and aggressive opponents should be shoving a wide range here that includes quite a few hands we dominate such as lower pocket pairs and Ax suited, where the kicker is 8 or lower.

Plugging this into a solver confirms that a correct open shoving range for UTG at 9BBs includes moving all-in with 33+/A4s+ and many of the big Ax and suited broadway hands. Pocket eights is a clear continue against this hand range, and we can profitably call with pocket pairs as low as 77.

Pairs below 77 dominate a few smaller pairs UTG may shove with here, however those hands begin to lose equity vs the entirety range as there is a higher concentration of Ax combos where the kicker will be higher than our pocket pair.

If we had opponent specific information that UTG is unlikely to move all-in preflop with hands like 33 or A7s, then pocket 8s would quickly start to become a fold. Based on our experience with this opponent, we know that they are appropriately aggressive and could easily have hands we dominate in the shoving range.

Since calling would be almost 30% of our stack and be pot committing, we should just move all-in over UTG’s open shove.

Moving all-in is the best play.