Bad play or bad timing?

[MasterShake]

I am playing a 5 person winner take all $10 NL tourney. The three players to my left were very tight/weak players and the player to my right is loose/aggressive. I have been playing tight/aggressive all night and I have had the chip lead all night. I manage to eliminate two short stacks in one foul swoop (with the help of QQ), so it is tighty mctightster to my left and maniac to my right. Tighty has ~2000 in chips, maniac has ~500, and I have ~2500. I am feeling unstoppable and have decided to turn up the aggression (blinds are 120/240). The very next hand I look down to find A8o, without even thinking about it I push. In a split second tighy calls and maniac sensibly folds, my stomach turns, and I am no longer unstoppable as he flips over AKo. A king flops and I am crippled. I play the short stack like a champ for awhile, but end up third. I am realy pissed at myself for throwing hours of good play away on one impulsive move. Was this completely out of line three handed? The “plan” was to pick up the blinds, and maybe get a call from maniac. Which of course backfired. Thoughts?

[bigredlemon]

Bad play. With a tight person to your right, you'll get to steal some blinds, but get crippled when you get called, as you have seen. WIth loose guy in big blind, he was pot comitted to call with any two cards anyway, and you are not a big favourite against a lot of hands. Even if tighty folded, your play is at best marginally +EV.

If you want to take him on, raise it to 500 to tell the tighty SB you have a hand to take out the BB with. He's not going to fight against the chipleader and risk tripling up the manic without a monster. If he calls/raises, that's your sign to exit unless you hit the flop hard.

[therock]

I normally push around 8-10 big blinds, but would make an exception in this case. Just raise 1 unit to $480. That will esentially put the big blind all-in (I know mctight acts first). If mctight calls or raises, you will know you are dominated and can still get out of the and with eight big blinds left. Pushing here accomplishes nothing, except giving mctight a chance to take all your chips if he has a better hand. Mctight will never call you in this spot with a hand worse than A,8.