Can someone help me understand this?

[Davidg]

I was playing in a PP mini step two today when this happened..don't have the actual hand but hopefully someone will make sense of it:

Sitting MP I raised with AQ to 150 with one limper in. Blinds are 15/30 and the limper had about 200 chips. Guy right behind me calls plus adds his last 40 chips to go all in. Seat behind him calls the 190 as does the one limper. 4 of us saw 899 flop. I was first to act and bet 200 at the pot and the other caller folded, the other two being all in. Turn and River do nothing and the guy in the seat behind me wins with AK. The seat behind him tells me in text I'm a moron because she'd have won on the turn if I hadn't made a big bet. When asked why, she said because the guy behind me would be out of the table. Someone agreed with her. I can't imagine why I wouldn't want to knock her out of the hand if I still thought I had the best hand between us. Why would I want her with about 800 extra chips and the other guy out of the table? Any help would be appreciated.

dlg

[skipperbob]

Not sure that I understand how there are 2 people allin while you're still at Level 1; but anyway, in a step tourny it is much more important to get rid of players than it is to accumulate chips....So the folding player was upset (rightfully so) that you bet into a dry side pot instead of just checking it out.(if u don't know what I mean by "a dry side pot", u need to do some reading)

[runner4life7]

It really depends how many are left, if these are the first people to go I think I'd be more concerned about getting some chips as opposed to eliminating some short stacks when one is going home almost for sure as it is.

[Davidg]

Guess I should point out that both of the short stacks were that way because the mad lady took down a huge pot from them. I figured both were calling pre flop with lesser hands than me and made the large flop bet to try to knock her out and win it all...the dry side pot makes sense, but I was trying to grab some chips, not let the massive chip leader get more....still a bad play, huh?

dlg