[jslag]

The obvious play was to push here. However, I felt that I could extract more chips from him this way. I also had a perfect read on this particular player. He was varying his raise and bet sizes based on the strength of his hand.

If I come over the top all-in, I am 99% certain he is folding in that spot. Yes I pick up the blinds and his min-raise and that is a little addition to my stack. However, within the next 2-3 minutes the blinds were moving to 5k/10k and getting him to fold preflop here isn't making my stack a dominant stack by any means.

Playing all-in poker preflop is precisely what I wanted to avoid. I believed I had a considerable edge over most of the other players as I was getting good reads and making notes of their play over the last 2 hours (I played with all but 2 of the players at the final table earlier in the tournament).

I'm not unhappy with how I played it... I got him to commit his chips as a considerable underdog. Perhaps I would have stayed in the tournament had I just pushed and he folded, but then again I'd be only a slightly above average stack with the blinds moving to 5k/10k the next orbit.

First prize was about $6100 and I really didn't care about 4th-10th place money here. I wanted to win or at least get a top 3 finish.

Congrats to your father, Don. He played well all the way up to and during the final table. There were two big pots before the final table that he could have gone broke in to me... but he made some good lay downs from what I could gather (once I had TPTK, another time I had a set).