Blah

In the 3000 limit tournament I thought I played well, but busted at the end of day 1 around 2:30 AM. I promptly went the booth and signed in for the next day's event, the 1500 NL. After my 8 hours of solid sleep I woke up and rushed over the rio in time for the 2500 person tournament.

My first table was ridiculously soft, but I got nothing going. Later I was moved to a tougher table, but managed to build 18,000 chips with some good situations after a few hours. 18,000 was quite a nice stack for that spot in the tournament.

My stack was 3rd biggest at the table when I got involved in a pot with one of the bigger stacks. A tightish player limped UTG, and the big stack limped in late position with 30,000+ chips. It was up to me in the SB and I had AKo. My image was a bit more loose-aggressive than it normally is, and for that reason I briefly considered just completing, but instead chose the pretty standard move of making a pretty big raise.

I made it 3000 total to go. The Big Blind short stack folded, and it was up to the UTG player. He thought for 20 seconds or so and then disgustedly folded his hand. Now, the Big stack player calls the extra 2600 in a shot. My read was he was spite calling this 2600 chips, I put him on a pretty mediocre pre-flop hand, but that could be many hands, including a small pocket pair, suited connectors or random biggish cards.

The flop was T85 rainbow and I bet 4600 in to a 7200 chip pot, leaving me with about 11,000 left. Again my opponent called fast. I really wasnt sure what he had, but I figured that if his hand was super big he might of just raised it there because it looked like I was pretty committed to the pot.

My best guess was he had a hand like 44,66,77 and was calling the flop to slow me down. With this being my best guess, I decided the only logical thing to do is shove any turn card and hope for the best (him folding).

Well, the turn was an 8, making the board T858. I shoved and he called instantly with 86 offsuit.
'
I was more dizzy after this hand then any hand so far this series. I could have done many different things in the hand. First I could have just called pre-flop in the SB, there are many reasons why to do this and why not to do this. I am not going to list all the pro's and con's but for you poker players I assume u already have considered them all.

After the fact I also realized that a flop check, followed by a check-raise or fold if I really hate the spot is possibly expert. It is going to be tough for him to call this power move without a read. Unfortunately I never even considered this move, and im sure thats a leak of mine. We dont get many options in a poker hand, its probably right to explore each one (in this case 2, bet or check) before we make a move.

In the end, my read of the hand was pretty accurate, and if he doesnt spike his 5 outer on the turn, he is going to be in a tough spot faced with basically calling off 18,000 chips with 86o after he flops an 8 vs an opponent showing maximum strength.

In the end im pretty annoyed because I had a nice stack and was in a very good spot in a tournament field that was pretty soft. Our table was also most likely breaking soon, I was just about to ask the tournament directors about that.

Ugh I wish I just completed my small blind one time