Micro stakes grinder up until Black Friday. Been mowin' down Bodog micros since then. Made a major move cross-country which derailed my game development even further, but found the joys of Bar League Poker here in Florida, and killed the first 13-week series I played in. Do alright on the cash tables, but I really dig MTTs and want to get better, just feel like my game development has stagnated somewhere very early in the process and don't seem to be getting any better at not making the same mistakes.

I'm definitely in the early part of my development and am a bit overwhelmed at the huge amount of information available here — any recommendations on where to start?

Here's an example of me thinking that I keep making the same stupid mistakes (in this case, calling when I am clearly beat):

We're on the third hand of a small two-table special tournament in the bar leagues, where the top ten players are pit against the top ten tournament directors (it's the Directors vs. Players tourney). It's a freeroll with lots of prizes, including $500 to first place (top ten finishers make at least $50).

Starting stacks are 2950; villain to my immediate left has already won one small pot and has me marginally outchipped. Blinds are 10/20, I'm in middle position and wake up with AsAc. I pop it to 150, expecting fully to get no callers, except the villain next to me re-pops it to 350. Folds all the way around to me, and I re-raise to 850, to figure out where I'm at. She snap calls, and we're off to the flop.

Villain is a good, young, fearless player. I've got a pretty good read on her, having played her a fair amount. She occasionally bluffs, but this is too early for that kind of shenanigans, so I have to put her on a pretty strong broadway pair.

Flop comes Jh7h2s, and the action comes to me. There's 1730 in the pot, and I've got about 2100 behind. I seriously don't like the Jack on the board, but I know if I don't show confidence here she will simply jam over the top, so I roll out 1000, and she snap-shoves.

Everything about this screams a set of Jacks, which is the only hand that beats me, but she could also have KK, QQ, or TT and the play would go exactly the same way. After about 30 seconds of tanking I figure I can't be fearful and I call.

She shows me her set. The rest of the board is no help to me, and I'm out in the third hand.

So: my read was right, and the action went very predictably. I keep thinking that I overplayed my Aces, but I can't see just calling her 350 raise and seeing what develops…

Where do I start?