in a 20+2 rebuy and add-on tourney at pokerstars.

I really just began trying to improve my tournament play. Generally, I play 5-10 or 10-20 HE. However, I decided that I wanted to improve my NLHE tourney skills. In the past week, I have fared pretty well in a few MTT. It seems like the bigger the tourney, the more I concentrate and the better I do(also, placed 4th of 1864, all on pokerstars).

Anyway, the reason for my post is not to brag. I haven't won anything and I know that many on these boards have done much better than I have.

The reason that I am writing this is to ask for advice. Which book could help me, which post might enlighten me or what piece of advice might force me to take a closer look at my weakness. While I can play shortstacked very well (I was almost blinded out while being in 79th out of 79th players, with only the top 36 making it in the money). I feel pretty confident playing with a short stack and I usually pick my spots pretty well. What I do not do well is pick my spots when I have some chips. I will often go all-in late once I have a top 5 hand. This has worked against me way too much!

In this event, I was ranked 7th out of 15, so I could have cruised into the final table. However, I decided that I wanted to make it to the final table with a big chip stack. So, I get AK suited in the small blind. There is one raise for about an additional 15k in chips (I had about 120k and the raiser had a little bit less). I figured that this was a semi-bluff because it was a somewhat small raise. However, I was conflicted because the raiser played pretty tight. The only hands I was REALLY REALLY worried about were AA and KK. Well, I raised her all-in, she called, and turned over KK. No help to either of us on the board at all. I then, realized that I probably made a bad move.

So, fire away. I am all yours. Please be honest. Give me your opinions. I need to improve my end game. So, I really would appreciate some help from the NLHE tournament experts. Thanks.

Don't neccesarily assume small raise=crap cards, especially from someone noticably tight. A lot of tight players, out of timidness or some need to entice people into a pot that they'll likely drag their way will make a substandard, non-intimidating raise with big cards, especially if they're not in early position and trying to limp-reraise.

You really weren't big-stacked, and the raise was equal to 17% of your stack, so you're not really deep enough to have much in the way of moves. I don't know how to advise you much here; a min reraise is 1/3 your stack gone, so a min-reraise to see what's up is a terrible idea. In situations where your chips are deeper I'd advise a small raise to let them expose AA or KK, muck the mid pairs, and play with you when you have them dominated :-). Or, you'll race it off, or even worse, lose all your chips when they smoothcall with the AA or KK and trap you. For your situation such a play is simply too expensive, even if the opponent is tight and unoriginal enough to make it worthwile.

I'd also like to see what people say considering your position and stack size, because those do make it a tough situation to reason through.

MTTs are pretty much all i play, all day long, endlessly on Ultimate Bet. I have never once read a book on poker and yet my game continues to improve. The best way to learn something is to learn it yourself, so don't go asking what books are a good read. My advice to improve your game is to play the $5 buy in MTTs as much as possible until you see your statistics improving. Naturally you'll get better and better changing your play at the various levels of the tournament naturally without having to read what someone else thinks you should do and not understanding why. So if you want to improve your game, just play more often for cheap until you see improvements. Then when the time is right go for higher buy ins.