down to 3 people in home tourney with top 2 getting paid

[hawaii]

the blinds were at 50-100 with my stack at 400. i had AQs on the big blind and small blind raised to 200 and i put him on a medium pair. i went all in and lost when i flopped top pair he caught a set on the river. the question is, could i have just called the preflop bet or raised it another 100 and raise the flop all in instead? that might have forced him to fold because has has been playing kidn of tight since the last player doubled up on him earlier.

[Phill S]

the trouble here is your weapons are limited by such a small stack.

if he was in a later position to you, you can always call and push it all in on any flop. suddenly youve gone from a hand where the board decides all, to a hand with folding equity. you need to be aware you must make this move on ANY flop if you wish to do this.

its a play i saw hostile6 (the guy who hosts the party hand replayer) do on one of his games (im pretty sure it was a 30 but thats irrelivant here).

its something im eager to try, however this is not the situation to do it.

he is SB to your BB so he would have position on you in the play above.

you cant really raise it 100. there is no question where the last 100 is going, and he'll just put you all in if he has any kind of hand. and for what little folding equity there is the 200 has the maximum effect here. however hes been playing tight so i suspect he has enough to go to the mattresses with.

you didnt mention stack sizes of the others, but im gonna assume they were higher than you (enough so they werent in trouble), then id say pushing all in is the best move without doubt. he could be putting you under pressure with any junk like KJ. AQs is a damn good hand three way, and id put my tourney on the line with it time after time.

you were slight dog going into the hand, but being short you needed to play like this. nothing wrong for me. keep up the good work.

Phill