AJs on bubble facing a raise..

[schilling38]

Last night played in a live 2-table $30 tourney and had a hand that I am now kicking myself over.

The stacks at this point are:

UTG: ~16000
Button: ~25000
SB: ~25000
HERO (BB): ~12000

Blinds are at 1000/2000

Hero is dealt: A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
UTG folds
Button (a tight player it seemed, but someone who had raised a few times like this on the button succesfully) RAISES TO 8000.
SB Folds
Hero?:

Should I have just called and stop-and-go'd any flop? Should I have raised him my last 4000 right there and pushed?


In hindsight I think this should have been an instapush, but I thought at the time I could outlast the other small stack and/or pick up a hand I felt better about shoving all my chips in the middle with.

There are also other issues with my bubble game: several times the two big stacks would fold when I along with the other small stack were the blinds. I would pick up hands like Kx or T4 or garbage like that and often fold, which I think was wrong to do on the bubble.

I pretty much gave away the tournament like this, and so I want to know how often should I have been raising/pushing garbage hands like that just by pure bubble theory? At these points, I was usually a few thousand chips below the other small stack.

FWIW, I bubbled out when I just had 4000 chips and called a raise with A6 and lost to A2.

looking forward to replies

[schilling38]

anybody home?

[J-Lo]

Payout? and fold-- IF UTG is tight enough to steal from.