Out near the bubble in 3 hands

[JustPlayingSmart]

Hi all,

This is my first post asking for advice. Before I start off I just want to say that lurking on this board for a month now has made me a much better tournament player, though these results may not show it. I was bored at 2 a.m. so I decided to play in a 100 pt tournament on UB for a prize pool of $200. The top 20 get paid, though as usual the real money is in the top few. I have been playing extremely well in that I have built my stack to 5000 without getting a chance to double. I am raising to 3.5x the BB about 1.5 times per loop, and rarely am I called. Unfortunately though, I have not had any chances to double my chips, so I am only an average stack with 24 left.

In the first hand I am wondering about, the blinds are 150-300, and I am dealt A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button...it's folded to the cutoff (T5645) who min raises to 600. I read this as a steal attempt, so I reraise to1 1900, thinking that I should get him to lay down the hand. He calls, so I know that I am probably in trouble. The flop comes 8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and he moves in. I think its obvious that I fold here. My question is...was my raise okay? It seems like this was a fold or raise situation, but after the hand I thought that since I have position, a flat call may be best. This would keep the pot small, so that I may be able to bluff him out or easily allow me to get away from the hand.

2 hands later (I have T3555), I am dealt K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] in MP and open raise to 1050. It was just under 1/3 of my stack, so I felt that I could get away if someone came over top, and that I would still have chips to fight with if someone called and I couldn't continue with the hand. The button (T3475, so I have him covered by 80 chips) then raised all-in. This player had made several preflop all-in moves, typically when there were several limpers in front of him. I had never seen a hand he moved in with, so I had difficulty knowing whether I could have been against a total bluff or something like a medium pair. After some thought, I folded. I think this was my mistake. In order to have any chance at a big (relative to my bankroll) prize, I think I should have called. If I lose, I lose, but it seemed likely I was only slightly behind Ax with x < Q or JJ or lower. Did I blow it here?

Next hand (now down to T2505) I get AcKs and make the same raise to 1050 (I assume I should just be moving in here since the raise is to 40% of my stack, but I was actually hoping someone would come over the top of me and I would get a chance to double or bust out). Sure enough, I am reraised and put all-in and I call, and lose to AA. Obviously the result would have been the same had I moved in, but I would like to know how I should play it in the future. I'm not really concerned about this hand, since I probably would not get a much better hand anytime soon, and though my stack probably would have allowed me to sneak into the money, I was playing for $60, not $2.

I have one other general question. Like I said, I was playing very aggressively at the table. Twice during the tournament, I stole with a trash hand, and the next hand was dealt AA. The first time I was UTG. I made the same raise as the hand before, hoping someone would play back, but everyone folded. I think I should have limped here, hoping someone else would raise and I could come over the top. The other time I stole and then was dealt AA in MP. I again open raised the same amount and all folded. Is there more of a case for raising here, or should I still consider limping. Since UB does not have antes, I feel like I didn't get enough out of my aces.

Once again, thanks for helping me out so much. There were only 2 times in this tournament where i moved all in against a bigger stack than me. The first I had ATo open raised from the button, and moved in on the rag flop. My opponent folded. The other time was when I busted out of the tournament. I feel like other than my "blunders" with AA, I really maximized my cards. I made a couple good laydowns (AK off in sb against a UTG limp reraiser who had KK and the big blind who had JJ) and made some good steals.

Jason

[JustPlayingSmart]

I just realized I posted this in the wrong board. Here is a case for calling this the Sit-N-Go board, since I just clicked the "tournament" link without looking at which board it was. I'll repost in MTT.