DECISION POINT: You are in a large field online series event with 125 players left and 117 make the money. The payout structure is flat. The binds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante and the average stack is approximately 20BBs. The UTG player moves all-in for 13,470 (13.5BBs) and action is on you in the UTG+1 seat with A♣Q♦ and a 24,720 (24.5BBs) stack.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in an online series event that started with over 1,000 players. There are 125 players left and 117 make the money in a relatively flat payout structure, with 36th place only making three times as much as 117th place finisher, and then the money jumps significantly from there. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante and the average stack is around 20 big blinds.

We are dealt AcQd UTG+1 and the UTG player moves all-in for 13,470 chips, or just over 13 big blinds. Most players would make a smaller raise with their bigger hands like AA and KK to try and get some action, which caps the range they would shove with. Even so, we are near the money bubble and this sort of play screams that UTG’s hand is strong enough they feel the need to play it, but weak enough they want everyone to fold. In most instances, this indicates a range including pocket pairs that are still vulnerable, such as 88-JJ, and big Ax hands like AK/AQ/AJ.

There are several other dynamics in play aside from considering our opponent’s range. We act immediately after the UTG player, which means there are still 6 players to act behind us. Even if we assume AQo is likely ahead of the UTG’s range, in the instances we continue and one of our remaining opponents yet to act elects to continue as well, we are almost certainly behind the third player’s range.

Next we need to consider the potential outcomes for our stack and position in the tournament if we are the only player to continue in the hand and go showdown against UTG’s 13BB shove. If we win, our stack increases to 35BBs, and will decrease to approximately 11BBs if we are unsuccessful. While an increase to 35BBs would marginally improve our expected value in the tournament, the risk of falling from 25BBs to 11BBs will be much more damaging.

If this 13BB shove came from a player in the Big Blind instead of UTG+1, the decision would be much closer. After running this hand in a solver we see the output dictates that we are supposed to fold to a 13BB shove from any position at the table except the Big Blind, which has a marginally positive 400 chip expectation when calling. If we dig deeper into the solver output we can see that this expectation assumes the UTG player might shove hands as weak as KJs, and we are still discouraged from calling.

So while our AQo performs reasonably well against the UTG range, once we factor in the bubble as well as the risk of players remaining behind us potentially entering the pot, this becomes a very clear fold.

Folding is the best play.