DECISION POINT: You're playing in a daily tournament with a fast structure. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante, and the re-entry period is still open. Action folds to the MP2 player, who has been playing aggressively, and they raise to 2,200. It folds to the Button, a passive player who frequently calls preflop, and they call. You're in the Small Blind with K♠T♠.

Action is on you — what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We’re still in the re-entry portion of a daily tournament with a fast structure. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. The player in the MP2 seat (sometimes called the Lojack) has been playing relatively aggressively, while the player on the Button has been playing quite passively and frequently just calls preflop.

We’re dealt K♠T♠ in the Small Blind, and action folds to the MP2 player. They raise to 2,200, which is consistent with their previous first-in raises. It folds to the Button, who calls, and action is on us.

To succeed in these fast-structured tournaments, it’s very important to learn how to play a 15–30 big blind stack size well, as stacks will quickly become short. In particular, playing effectively from late position and the Blinds is crucial. With a 25 big blind stack one of the best tools at our disposal to pick up chips is a preflop squeeze, which is when there is a raiser (ideally someone opening a lot of hands) and a caller (ideally someone who is calling too wide) and we re-raise all-in. This raise essentially “squeezes” the initial opener, who now has to contend with our re-raise and the caller behind them.

A common mistake in this spot is calling too frequently. We’ll be out of position postflop, and there are already nearly 7,000 chips in the middle. Picking up that pot uncontested would increase our stack by nearly a third. Players often call too frequently with hands like 88, which are strong but vulnerable in this specific setup. While hands like 88, KTs, and AJo can show a profit as calls, they make far more by moving all-in when we assume normal ranges for our opponents.

In this specific scenario, the MP2 player is likely opening quite a bit wider than average, and the Button is calling much wider than usual. This dynamic creates a very clear spot to move all-in.

We’ll often pick up the nearly 7,000 chips uncontested, and when we do get called, we’ll still have 30–40% equity— with a significant amount of dead money already in the pot.

Moving all-in is the best play.