Played in an 18-man live tourney last night. Played great but was always playing comeback, traps didn't get paid off too well and nobody caught an OK hand when I caught big. Long story short, found myself on the bubble with 5 players left, me with appx. 280 chips and the rest with 700+.

Normally, I gotta play aggressive and try to double. However, blind structure, changing from 8-16 to 10-20 (but extending 10 more minutes) wasn't really putting the heat on. Should I have slowed down to see if someone would've taken a big hit vs. trying to double up? All the big stacks were very aggressive throughout the tournament, but slowed down considerably when we were down to 6.

I chose the double up route this time. Was allin 4 times in the first few rounds of the new blind level, with no callers, then pushed it in with A-7 suited in the bb and got called by QQ in the sb who had only completed it before I pushed. Didn't improve.

Prolly wasn't a need to push everything. From what you described you had enough chips to just put a little raise in there. That way you could get off the hand and survive to play another one.

I agree with Dev. If you make a standard pre-flop raise, or just call that raise, you'd still be in position to take that pot. Even if the flop didn't come with an A but a K, you still could bluff your opponent off his QQ. If you had a big hand like AK AA KK, then it would be ok to push it all-in, but with a hand like A7 sooted and you're not less that 10x the big blind, don't push. I don't follow much of his advice, but I do follow this little quote, "Bring your big guns to the big battles." - Phil Hellmuth

Plenty of Time Push w/ a Better hand

Don't forget about your own table image. If you keep throwing your chips in with no showdown, people will be raring to get you once they have any kind of a hand that can stand up to it.....let alone when they are holding a real hand.

If you have been in a lot of all-in uncontested pots with the short stack....the value of A7 sooted drops even more.....which quite frankly isn't a whole lot in the first place.

It seems to me that in situations like this, people start pushing all in as more of a habit than a tactical play. Once you get comfortable pushing all in, you are in the hurt locker. Times like this, you need to make raises that are large enough to move people off their hands, but small enough so you don't cripple yourself in the event someone calls. By the way, most anyone who plays super tight on the bubble and then finally call you will probably have you beat...imho...

Be patient, you may be the short stack but you are not short stacked(compared to the blinds). When you are going to play a hand, make raises that don't commit you. Bottom line IMO is you have a lot more tools available to you at this point than pushing and praying.

You should be playing to win, so I don't mind you going berserko a little bit trying to double up, but there is threshold where tightening up has a higher EV than jamming with a huge range. It seems like after you stole the blinds a few times you should've been well above 300, and you could've been a bit more patient.