DECISION POINT: ​You are in fast structured $200 daily with 250/500 blinds and a 500 big blind ante. You have reads on the Button, who is a known regular in these tournaments and is an aggressive player, and the Small Blind who has been very tight thus far. You are the shortest stack with 25BBs and the majority of the rest of the table is in the 50BB range. Everyone folds to the Button who raises to 1,250, the Small Blind folds, and action is on you in the Big Blind with pocket sevens.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are in the early stages of a $200 buy-in daily live tournament with blinds at 250/500 blinds and 500 big blind ante. Our table reads are that Button is a known regular in these tournaments who is aggressive and the Small Blind has been very tight thus far. The tournament is fast structured with 20 minute levels and the blinds are going to increase next hand. We are the shortest stack with 25 big blinds and most of the rest of the table is in the 50 big blind range.

We are dealt pocket sevens in the Big Blind. Everyone folds to the Button who raises to 1,250, the Small Blind folds, and action is on us.

A standard Button player in this spot would be opening somewhere in the neighborhood of 35% of total hands, however in this situation we are not against a standard Button player. We are against an aggressive player and there is a tight player in the Small Blind, which expands the Button’s range even wider.

Pocket sevens is extremely far ahead of our opponent’s range. This means folding is out of the question and makes a passive play like calling, while still +EV, not the best play. The choice is really between raising to a smaller amount, such as 7.5BBs, or just moving all-in.

One potential issue with raising smaller is that our hand plays somewhat poorly out of position, with the potential for overcards on the flop. A very aggressive player also might think they still have preflop fold equity, and move all-in with hands like K9s that have significant equity against us, but would likely fold to an all-in.

Additionally, hands such as 22-66 might call a shove and allow us to get all our money in as a huge favorite, while some of those hands might just call the smaller raise preflop and sometimes fold postflop.

If we use a solver to see how to approach this situation against a GTO player, the conclusion is similar. Calling is +EV but only has a positive expectation of just under 1,000 chips. Raising a small size has an expectation of around 1,300 chips, and moving all-in of nearly 1,500.

These differences may seem small, but they assume that we (and our opponents) will play perfectly both preflop and postflop. They also assume our opponent is opening a GTO range, and we’ve established they are opening much wider than that.

Moving all-in is the best play.