So I played in a one dollar buyin, 910 entrant NL holdem tourney tonight. I played really well, made flushes etc when I needed to, and just didnt take any bad beats. I got to the top 20, where you make about 6 bucks, and then I decided to go for it. The money is actually kind of important to me.

Anyway, I won a lot of pots on the flop, and just kinda hung around while everyone else busted out. Got down to 3 left.

I had 420k in chips, chip leader had something like 1.4mil, and other guy had 950k.

They were both playing very aggressively, and playing well.

I got KJo on the button with blinds of 10 and 20k. I raised to 80k. (Sorry no hand converter on this one) Chip leader in the big blind raises me in. I felt a rush to just call, and hit call after about 10 seconds. He had AJo and won the pot.

I figured I was the shortstack, and maybe he had A8 or 55 or something that I could gamble with.

So, any thoughts here? He was very aggressive, but I could have folded and still had 360k.

I won 68 dollars so im not too unhappy either way, but I really fumbled this hand.

I wouldn't say that you really fumbled this hand. If the villain had been overly aggressive, restealing and trying to push you off hands, then one could justify a call here. He's going to make this move with 22+, lots of weak As and maybe even any 2 broadway cards so you may not be in as bad a situation as it looks.

That being said, I'd rather be doing the pushing here then calling off all my chips and even though you're the table short stack, you do have enough chips to wait for a better spot.

50-60k sends the same message and much cheaper

I would agree there. Given the chip stacks if he has a playable hand he is calling 60K -150K and if he thinks he has you or a good enough hand he will push. While KJ is not bad three way you still need to tread softly. You could have folded and made that same raise or like "the alex" suggested a bit less and stole the blinds over the next three hands and got that money back.

Or obviously waited for a better spot. 340K still plenty to put pressure on with an all in pre flop..you're only two double ups away from being chip leader.
In my experience it seems even if it is a true race situation whoever pushed the all in seems to edge out the calling all in over time.

Congrats on third though Well DONE that is a big field.

You're right, I could get the same info with a smaller raise. 4x bb, although rather large, was the standard raise at that point.

Reason I posted this is because I realize how stupidly I played this hand, but then again, I felt a huge rush telling me to CALL CALL CALL. Kind of hard to ignore those.


Also didnt help that the two larger stacks were soft playing each other, folding their blinds when I wasn't in, felt like a 2 on 1.