moving up---not too long

[Mr_J]

"For example, with three other people and me, I had eights on the button, and the blinds were one and two. I had T1200, and every one else had between 1500 and 2500. I didn't know if I should min-raise, shove, or just fold. I shoved and got called by an ace nine and lost and that's the way it goes.

A similar sitation happened when I had T800 in the SB, with four people total, and I had fours and blinds were 150-300. I'm not very upset about this since I had so few chips and was just facing the BB, but I still wonder. "

Don't wanna offend you but maybe you should just play the $22s until your bubble game is more confident?

"Any thoughts? Keeping shoving on the coin flips or not??? "

Look at the maths behind it. With 44 yes you are usually a coinflip, but when you get called here you are risking 650 for a profit of 950. You have 2xbb if you fold, have no folding equity (800 stack has some at least) and you probally won't find a better hand to die with than a PP. Easy push (I'm assuming there's nothing tricky like 2 of the other guys about to bust out).

"I didn't know if I should min-raise, shove, or just fold."

Minraise is usually a poor move. It invites people to call or come back over the top. A hand like 88 doens't want this, it wants to take the pot down without a showdown, and the easiest way to do this is push preflop for maximum folding equity.

"What stack size should change my mind???"

Stacksize always is a major influence on shorterhanded situations.