The following is a ramble of word vomit as I type out my thoughts. Please don’t mistake length of post for education or clout on the subject, but a semblance of my understanding of this spot.

This deep in a major tournament, I’d start looking up as much information on my opponents as I can, unless it hurts me drastically to do so. You mentioned the villain is from Europe. You’re playing on America’s Card Room. AMERICA’S CARD ROOM. I’d assume this villain is a professional until shown otherwise. There’s no other reason I could see a European player jumping onto the site. A recreational European player probably has no idea on the makeup of United States-facing poker sites. There are too many hoops to jump through for that type of person to be in this tournament.

Next, stack sizes. Average stack in this game is finally creeping downward. Average is 30bb and your villain has just shy of 100! How do you think the villain got that? Waiting and waiting and then 3betting Aces? Probably not. With the tournament approaching late-game, and chips becoming more and more valuable, your stack (and the stacks of the blinds) are prime targets for attacking light. If you call, your postflop skill game better be killer or you’re going to fold the best hand a lot of the time on bad run outs, and get it in bad on a lot of good run outs. Villain knows this, as they’re a European player on AMERICAS CARD ROOM! The only option the blinds have to play any of their hands in the even that they face a 3bet, is to shove or fold. They don’t have any postflop maneuverability, and they aren’t likely to just spew their tournament away by cold calling QJs or 22 and check/folding.

Your range in this spot, readless across the board, could be something like be 22+, K7s+, K9o+, 64s+, A2s+, ATo+, I don’t know, just spit balling here. Seeing that you have a reg on your right, you should cut this down a lot, because they’re probably going to punish you otherwise. As Shaun Deeb said after opening K9o in the cutoff vs James Obst who 3b QTs (I think that was his hand), “I had a hand that’s definitely an open, but as I did it I knew I’m lighting money on fire. You’re too good in this spot.” Villain will 3bet super wide here if they think you’re opening a decent amount here. You can’t continue with all your pair combos, you can’t continue with your suited connecting hands, or your weak aces, or really any of your range.

Since this villain is good, I’d want to make sure I’m not being exploited in this spot, because this is a really good chip collecting spot for them. To do that, I’d 4bet rip enough of my range to make up for it. I’m assuming 99 is close enough to the top of our range (especially after the board runs out all 5) that I want to shove. Yeah we have 40 big blinds and can probably last a lot longer by folding and folding and folding, but you need more than 40 big blinds to make it to the final table, and my guess is if you’re folding 99 here, you’re probably lighting money on fire with your opening range. 

You open to 2.2bb, villain 3bets to 5bb, and the pot has 2bb in it already. So 9bb. Your stack after raising is 38bb. That’s almost 25% of your stack in the middle, and you have a strong hand. If villain folds overcards, you’re golden. If villain 3b/calls AJo+, so be it? You’re making like 2.5% profit anytime that happens. (For simplicity, ~50% equity, and the blinds and antes are about 2bb; 1bb/40bb). Villain 3b TT+ probably. Thats 30 combos. AJ+ is 48 combos. Add in any suited stuff and that’s 4 more combos per hand. The more I do this the more comfortable I feel with a shove.