33 Person Multi Final Table Mistake?

[SyphonTheirCash]

Hey everyone,
This is my first attempt at posting a situation so I hope I do it well enough. Ty in advance for any feedback. This situation just happened to me recently. I orginally thought I made the correct play, but the more I think about it.... So i'm in a $100 33-person multi table tournament top 4 getting paid. Starting stack is 1500 making the average stack at the time about 7071. The blinds are 500/1000 increasing in less than 5 minutes to 1000/2000(No Antes). With 7 left i'm sitting on the BB with 4,100. The other stacks are one at 1,000; 4 at about 10,000; bigstack on the SB with about 3 times the next biggest stack. It folds around to the SB who raises it to 3,000. The SB player is a maniac player. He will raise everyhand no matter what it is if the pot has not been raised yet. He raises 72o the same as AA. I've had a pretty good read on him regardless the whole night and doubled off him twice. The rest of the players on the table are quite solid and probably wouldn't do anything stupid prior to me being blinded out or getting a bigger stack. The way he bet it and acted I put him on medium cards 8-Q no pair. I look down at my hand and see A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I think it is a great example of a decision with a marginal hand , something that is crucial when you are in tournament play. What would you do in this situation?

[Dawdy]

You have 4 BB left at most and you are 2 bottom chipped with 6k between u and the person above you which is more than double your chip stack.
I think A8 is a good enough hand to protect you BB from a SB steal. You need the chips at this point. Even if it isnt a steal you will soon be in a position where everyone will see your chips as a cheap call.
Its unlikely SB will go bust as all the other players dont want to go bust before the 2 small stack go so you have to make money and the most likely source is the SB.
Everything shouts all in here as you wont be able to limp into the money by your assesment of the other players.
My answer would change to fold if there was a chance 3 players would go bust before you blinded out.

Dawdy

[SyphonTheirCash]

I agree...I orginally thought it out and wondered if I should have waited for a better situation to push. Perhaps if I would have waited and doubled up in the next round I could have come across another situation that was better. However, after reading your post and talking to some friends i've come to the conclusion that pushing is the move to make. All-in is correct based on my read. I had approximately at least a 13.4% edge if he had the range of hands I put him on. Since having QQ vs. AK is a worse situation that this one, I believe that all-in is the move to make. Any disagreements?

[Dawdy]

Unless the guy is shakin like Elvis Im pushing here regardless.
You need the chips and hes the most likely candidate, heads up even with a relatively weak hand such as middle connectors Im moving all in.

If hes shakin badly then hmmm that would be a tough one.. I have had aces cracked and cracked them myself often enough that I think this spot is an automatic push with any 2.

As we said. you will soon have 3.5k, next round 2k. (if the blinds dont go up first) everyone knows the blinds are going up so you HAVE to move in with anything half decent so will be called which unless u pick up AA will prolly mean a coin flip sooo why coin flip later when you have less and can win less?

Dawdy

[schwza]

easy call. i'd call A2o here.