[NYCNative]

Middle levels of a MTT. Started with $10,000 and 25/50 blinds. Blinds are now $150/300 with $25 antes and I have lost half of my stack. Average is about $13,500 or so. I need to make a move soon but I am not desperate quite yet.

I am in the Big Blind and it is folded around to the button. She is solid unless she is running good or bad - she gets overconfident when running good and gets tilty when running bad. Right now she is running good (she is the chip leader) and overconfident. She limps with, I'm fairly certain judging from her mannerisms, a meager hand.

Small blind folds. I look down and see two Aces.

I give it some thought and I pop a raise but only add $800 more on top. She thinks about it and decides that getting 2-to-1 on her money is worth the call so she does.

I check in the dark as a sign fo strength. She checks in the dark as well.

The flop is A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. I made top set. I also have the Ace of Spades.

The turn comes along since we both checked in the dark and it's the 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. I now have top set and the nut flush draw. I come out of my shell and bet pot-sized which is about half my remaining stack. She raises and I go all-in feeling commited and she calls me.

She had K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].

Even though I am behind, I have significant redraws here and can overtake her with a boat or nut flush over a third of the time.

Naturally a harmless Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] comes along and I'm done.

I knew that I was taking a chance by playing the hand the way I did mainly because I felt that this was my chance to double up and have a chance to compete before the blinds really started to get big.

Making a big PF raise might have netted me the blinds but I deemed that a waste; I wanted to price her into a call that made sense against my range but not my holdings.

The check in the dark gave her a free shot at the flush. In retrospect, I probably should have bet the flop to protect my set. However, there's a good chance that had I done this that I would have tried to price her in again because I was still a huge favorite against anything she had including the flush draw.

Can I safely write this off as a calculated risk that at any time gave me a good chance to double up but just didn't happen to work out for me? Or was it a bad gamble?