$2 Party NL MTT Down to 3 Play Suggestions

[cadillac1234]

Please note: All the chip sizes are aprox...

Blinds are 5/10K, Hero has been raising and taking blinds for a while now without much resistance, player 2 is tight weak and player 3 is aggressive but will only play and bully tight weak player

Tight weak player and hero's stack about T700-760K, aggressive stack around T250K.

Hero has very good control over tight weak who will not call against any sort of raise or blind steals unless she has a HP pre-flop or the nuts post-flop.

Aggressive Player 3, will also not play against hero's raises but constantly hounds tight-weak player 2 and takes her blinds. Bad hole cards are hittitng hero enough that he cannot risk an all-in call from an over-the-top play.

After about 10 orbits, Hero is happy taking aprox T200K in blinds down but now tight weak is at T500K and aggressive is at T400K. Obviously the aggressive player is not the one I want to see with a bigger chip stack.

Finally tight weak goes all-in, player 3 calls, hero is siiting on a 75o and folds. Aggressive player 3 calls, busts tight weak and is aprox T125K behind hero going heads-up...

Obvoiusly I wanted tight weak in with me heads up for first over the aggressor but I was torn between letting player 3 beat her and facing the obviously better of the two against me heads up with a lot more chips than he should have had.

I was hoping to land a hand and bust them 3 way if possible but is the best strategy here to stay back and trap while letting them fight it out between themselves or to try to protect the lesser player with more calculated raises against the aggressor?

Side note: After about 20 minutes head-up and just giving up a double up on a bad beat, hero goes all-in AKo with near identical chip stack against player 3 who calls A8s and hits the 3-1 flush draw on the river... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]