Ok so I was just in a tournament yesterday and I need your advice on a hand I got busted on. I guess there is nothing to really give advice on because it was an all in pre-flop hand, but i mean, what should I have been thinking at this point. I want to know what you all would have done in that situation call or fold?
It was a 125 buy in tourney with 101 players. The top 18 got paid. I had 6500 in chips and the average chip stack at my table was about 10,000, blinds were 400-800 with 100 ante (it was level 8 of the tourney) so there were 22 players left. The table was pretty aggressive, and I had a tight table image all tournament long. I am UTG with As10s and I raise it to 2200, an aggressive player in middle position with a stack of about 14,000 pushes all in. Everyone folds to me and after thinking about it for about 2 or 3 minutes, I call. He flips over QQ, and I don't hit any of my cards.
Afterwards I was kicking myself for raising with A10 suited UTG. I don't even know what I was putting him on. I guess I figured he could have had a hand, but maybe i was hoping i could get lucky and hit spades or an Ace. This is the only spot in the tournament where I went all-in and knew that I didn't have the best hand. Everytime I play a tournament, my beginning game and middle game is pretty good. My end game, right around the money, is horrible. For some reason, I donk off my chips on stupid decisions. Do you guys know of any good reading material concerning the end game of tournaments? Thanks in advance.

I'd suggest posting this in the tournament forum and not giving the results or your opponent's hand for a better analysis of the hand.

And read the Harrington on Hold'em series, particularly the second volume.

harrington on holdem VOl.2 endgame, i dont like the raise of 2200 UTG. thats a third of ur chips and almost have to call an allin just like you did, i wouldve either called hopefully to see a flop or just fold

Probably a fold preflop.

You're so short that you really should not raise if you're not resolved to call a push. You should probably open pushing for raises tho too.

Push all in preflop.
Absolutely.
Positively.
Easy decision.



When your stack drifts below 10xbb, your preflop options start to become limited.
Standard 3xbb raises lose their effectiveness because you don't have much room to maneuver postflop.
And if your 3xbb preflop raise gets reraised, you have already committed too much of your stack to fold.
So if you are willing to call an all in reraise anyways, you might as well be the one to put the money in yourself.

Because of this, using the all-or-nothing technique in recommended.
Either push all in immediately, or fold and get out of the way.


In your situation, there are over 2000 chips in the pot before the cards are dealt, right?
That represents a HUGE value to your small stack.
Winning this hand preflop would be a major victory.
Because of this, you have to fight for this pot.


Conclusion: Push ALL IN preflop.


If someone had entered the pot ahead of you, your decision may be altered.
But when you are the first one in the hand, your decision is clear.

More often than not, your big preflop raise will pick up the pot uncontested.
And your stack will have grown by a large amount.

--CM

Raising is a bad choice with that hand and your stack size. Your m is barely over 5, a simple call or push all in preflop would have been the better choice in my eyes

Well let's see you have 6500 in chips so you have 8XBB. With 22 people left you are probably not at a short-handed table, so assuming 9 person tables you can have ~40 hands to choose from. Are you sure you can't get a better hand to move with?

Part of playing short stacked is knowing when to push and AT from UTG at an "aggressive" full table does not sound like the best situation to be in. You are more then likely going to be in a race situation or dominated. I would wait for a better position.

First, how did you get in this situation with a M of just 5? I hope you just lost a big pot or something, because it looks like you got blinded down and had to make a desperate move. I would push this for the reason CM cited.