DECISION POINT: In a tournament with blinds at 400/800, the UTG+1 player raises to 2,900 and you reraise to 7,000 from the Hijack with A♠A♥. Action folds back to the original early position raiser and they call. Your opponent checks the Q♦J♦5♣ flop, you bet 7,000 and they go all-in. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in the early levels of a large field multi-table tournament. The blinds are 400/800 and with 30,000 chips, or just less than 40 big blinds, we are one of the shortest stacks at the table. We are dealt AsAh in the Hijack seat. UTG+1 raises first to act to 2,900 and action folds to us.

This is a fairly large raise given stack sizes and especially with no ante in play. There really isn’t a reason to slowplay our pocket aces preflop. We would just likely be encouraging other callers with a hand that doesn’t play as well multi-way and UTG+1 has already shown a lot of strength with a sizable raise preflop. We raise to 7,000 and action folds back to the original raiser who calls.

The flop is QdJd5c and our opponent checks. This is a fairly coordinated board that is a little scary for us. That being said, we are likely to have more QQ/JJ combinations. Our range and the UTG+1 range can still contain AQ, however UTG+1 is much more likely to have QJs than us. A set with 55 is is also in their range, however we should discount that possibility as fives aren’t as likely to be making that large of a preflop open from early position.

Even though this board is coordinated we likely retain a slight nut advantage. It’s also somewhat better for us that the Queen and Jack on the board are diamonds, as our opponent is unlikely have many 5x diamond combos in their range. UTG+1 would be more likely to have KJdd/JTdd combos in their hand range if the flop contained the 5 of diamonds and a non-diamond jack.

Taking all of that into consideration, fundamentally this situation boils down to an overpair to the flop with a stack to pot ratio (SPR) of less than 2. Folding the best hand here would be a catastrophic mistake and we want to push our equity edge.

Betting is definitely preferred, and our sizing should be such to give UTG+1 the illusion they have some fold equity with a raise. In this spot a bet size in the range of  5,000-7,000 is appropriate. We choose to use a sizing at the top of that range and bet 7,000 and the UTG+1 player moves all-in.

While putting our tournament life might seem scary, winning key pots in spots like this is essential to making deep runs in tournaments. Our opponent’s range should still include many hands that our pocket aces are still well ahead of even on this scary board.

Calling is the best play.