DECISION POINT: You are in the money at the final table of a daily tournament with eight players remaining and blinds are 2,000/4,000 with no ante. Action folds to you on the Button with A♥T♥.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are at the final table of a daily tournament that is already in the money with a standard, escalating payout scale for the remaining eight places. The blinds are 2,000/4,000 with no ante in play. We are dealt AhTh on the Button and everyone folds to us.

A common mistake players make is not considering an all-in bet before they get down to 10BBs. While being at 10BBs (or fewer) definitely means that shoving is your only viable play, there are many times in the 10-15BB range that moving all-in should also be a serious consideration.

The decision between making a raise to 2BB or moving all-in in this situation is extremely close. Running it through a simulator the difference is .01 BBs and slightly favors moving all-in vs making a small raise. This decision however, requires quite a bit of nuance to determine the most profitable play.

The simulator setup predetermines a few factors that may not be correct in real-time during play. One of these assumptions is that when you make a small raise, the Big Blind is going to continue in the hand approximately 85% of the time and then play perfectly postflop. Most of the .01BB difference in shoving versus raising comes from the additional fold equity we generate by moving all-in.

If you are playing against a Big Blind who overfolds to small raises or simply gives up too often postflop, making a small raise can become much more profitable than just shoving. We should also note there is no ante in play here. If there was, then shoving would start to show a significantly higher EV.

Since we have no reads on this particular player it is best practice to assume that they play well, and make the best play in a vacuum. It is important to note though and any player specific information in this hand could easily tip our decision towards a standard opening raise size, and sometimes by a significant margin depending on the magnitude of mistakes the Blinds are making.

Moving all-in is the best play.