We play with 50 people at 1000 chips each, with pretty big blind levels (they start at 25-50 and double every half hour). We get a lot of fish, but there are 10 or 15 people who play every time that are good solid players. I've had some success, but haven't kept track enough to really quantify it, I just know that I have a bunch of final tables and 2 second place finishes. I've got a coupla plays I'd like some help with from today's tourney...

1. About 16 people left. Blinds recently went up to 100-200, and we currently have 7 people at the table. I am in CO, and get dealt , with a short stack of ~1500. There are 4 players in front of me, and 3 of them limp in... I push my stack in, and nobody takes up the challenge, so I pick up about 700 out of the pot. Should I have bet lower to try and get some callers with my first good hand in a while, or is vaccuming the pot a good result there? (On a similar note, I did the same thing from early position a couple weeks ago at the final table and got put out when the BB had Queens... Bad play from EP?)

2. We're down to 6 players, I've run down to 1400 chips and am UTG. I get dealt . I make a minimum raise to 400. Folds all around, until the big blind says "I guess I'll see the flop"... my read is that he is really weak instead of trying to throw me off, and he has a good sized stack of around 4000. The flop comes 347 rainbow. He checks... without hesitation I push all in... after a while he calls me down and turns over 24o. He gets a third 4 on the turn and I'm done. Should I have raised more preflop here... since I doubt he would have called a bigger bet... or was the raise allright with the short stack, where I just shouldn't have bluffed when I figured he had lowcards and the flop was ALL lowcards?

Thanks for bearing with me

1) good push, there was 300 in the pot form the blinds and another 300 from limps, thats a good score, about a 40% stack improvement. 1.b) pushing with JJ on a short is almost always the perfect move. Never second guess a short stack push PF.

2) Push this PF, screw that min raise shit. Take the blinds now.

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Yup.

1) push and be happy with the pot.

2) Push (there may be a case to fold, though with such a small stack relative to the blinds you are unlikely to get a better spot to put your chips in). The only other factor would be the prize structure and the size of the other stacks.

In late position I probably would have pushed, but i figured if someone else had a monster I could get away from it this way and still have a shot to rebuild into contention... and if I got multiple callers I could win a nice solid pot if I hit the flop.

But I was kicking myself later for letting someone with 24o into a pot with me... of course, the fact that he called my all-in bet with middle pair and a terrible kicker doesn't say a whole lot about my table image lol.