The poker tournament schedule in the Seattle area is pretty pathetic, but we just had our best series of tournaments – two weekends *IN A ROW* of *SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLAR* buyin tournaments at the two biggest Indian Reservation Casinos.  It's the most poker I've played since the WSOP, and I'm pleased to say I cashed in both main events and had my best score in over a year (3rd place in the $750 Muckleshoot main event for $17,300).  There were certainly some interesting hands from that event, but it was such a weird final table and it would take a long time to write out the table dynamics and to describe “Dewey”, the 80-something wheelchair&oxygen-tank dude who pretty much rolled/luckboxed over the FT.  So I'll post about my bustout hand from the Tulalip Poker Pow-Wow (yes they really call it that) main event… 

The action of the hand is trivial and it just ends up in a preflop coinflip, but a little bit of live-read & edge-over-field & ICM considerations make me wonder whether I should have done something different:

$550 buyin, 375 players between Day 1A & 1B, 39 players return for Day 2 but only 37 make the money.  I made Day 2 from Day 1A with 52K (blinds will be 500-1500-3000 for 25 more minutes), well below average but there are several players shorter, including one player at my table with 8500 who I was with on Day 1A & watched him fold his blinds on the last two hands of the night instead of just getting his chips in to either double/triple or not have to return with a micro stack.  The table/seat draw for Day 2 is not made publically available but I manage to get my hands on it because I'm that much of a poker nerd.  I have three big (150k-250k) stacks on my left and the chip-leader/villain (320K) on my right – he has some small WSOP and other cashes but nothing spectacular, which puts him a notch above the typical local player.  I think I have to be somewhat ICM conscious and try to survive the bubble – not that I'll be completely wimpy, but all the players around me are in great position to put bubble pressure on me, so I think I have to be pretty cautious.  I think that once we get in the money I'll have a decent edge on this field, especially wrt short-stack play.

1st hand dealt I'm in the BB (yay!), it's folded around to the villain in the SB and he just comfortably&quietly sticks out a stack of 5K chips to put me all in, and I fold my 17BB stack.  I fold an orbit, during which 2 players bust and we make the money.  On my next BB it's folded around to villain/SB again, and he does the same thing (I now have 43K).  I have A7o and near-snap-call, doubling through his K2o.  Two hands later I open the button with A6o, flop an Ace but get check-raised on the turn and end up folding river, dropping down to 65K.  Blinds up to 500-2K-4K, once again it's folded to the villain/SB, I say “Uh-Oh not again!” (before looking at my cards), he says “I can't go all the way this time”, which sets vague warning bells off in my brain, and opens to 9.5K. Before looking at my cards I think “that might be strength but I'm not sure – he might raise bigger or just shove again if he's hoping to get a fold, plus the comment seems like a weak-means-strong thing, but I don't know him well enough to be confident”.  I look down at 44, which would normally be an auto-pilot shove for me in that spot with 15BB+ (pocket pair BBvSB, gross to see a flop with, borderline odds to set-mine), but his bet-size and comment make me pause.  If either strengthens his range a little, 44 is in moderately bad shape.  But my autopilot is pretty strong (I wish I had considered a bit more) … I shove, he has AKo, and I lose the flip.

In semi-results-oriented hindsight, I'm fine getting it in on a flip, but if his range was pretty strong then I was either flipping or way behind, and I wonder if I could have actually done anything different (fold pre? flat pre and get it in on any non-Ace flop?).  If my spidey-sense is right and his comment/size is indicative of a strong range that he's trying to induce me to spazz with (66+, AQo+, AJs, KQs?) then I'm a 2:1 dog and my shove is always getting called.  But I'm rarely 100% confident of my live-read there, at least not against this particular villain.

Any thoughts?  (Including “you're overthinking a trivially standard hand”)