Was this a Buffoon play?

PuppetJack

at the time I thought it worthwhile, however after the fact, I'm thinking it was moronic. - views accepted.

Just to set the tone - final 4 of a £10 B/H - top 6 paid. I was 2nd in chips, in the last two hands the chip leader had knocked out two people so had me covered 3:1 and I in turn had 3rd place covered almost 2:1 so I knew it was going to be an uphill struggle to get back in a position to take the tourney down.

My BB & the chip leader ( to my right) min-raises, so I figure he's just playing his stack. Here's what went down. 

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
chipleader	Small blind		300.00	300.00	49269.76
PuppetJack	Big blind		600.00	900.00	18781.01
	Your hole cards	5 3
cazzie58	Fold
kai5	Fold
chipleader	Raise		900.00	1800.00	48369.76
PuppetJack	Call		600.00	2400.00	18181.01
Flop
		A 9 10
chipleader	Bet		1200.00	3600.00	47169.76
PuppetJack	Raise		4800.00	8400.00	13381.01
chipleader	All-in		47169.76	55569.76	0.00
PuppetJack	All-in		13381.01	68950.77	0.00
chipleader	Unmatched bet		30188.75	38762.02	30188.75
chipleader	Show	A 5
PuppetJack	Show	5 3
Turn
		3
River
		J
chipleader	Win	Pair of Aces	38762.02		68950.77

was it foolish to get all my chips in like that with only a 3:1 a shot of winning, or is this the kinda thing you should do in these spots to build a big enough stack to go on & win?

Thanks - PJ

GELDY

wrong for ICM reasons

save the more speculative hands for when you are heads up. that way you take down the prize for 2nd instead of 4th should you fail. until then target the shorties.

Phantom66

Looks bad to me.

Pure gambling and trying to get lucky with poor odds while situation doesn't call for it. 

To shove there chip leader is going to be way ahead of you 100% of the time - and possibly drawing to a bigger flush to leave you very light on outs.

By all means peel a flop if you don't want to be bullied by big stack but give it up on that post flop action.

If its the first time he has raised your BB in a while I would just let it go there. If he has only just become chip leader sit and watch how they play it - don't just assume they are going to bully you as middle stack.

Ideally in this situation we want to get to HU like Geldy says. 3:1 HU with shallow blinds you may well get a flip which is a lot better than this situation.

BigHawk89

Fold pre, you're not gonna hit a flop often enough to call here. 

The chip leader can also put you in some pretty gross spots, when most of the time you're gonna flop bottom pair at best.

Wait for a better spot 30 bigs is tons on sky.

hhyftrftdr

Think the peel pre is absolutely fine. Surprised to see people thinking folding pre is a feasible option?!

I'd just call the flop bet. Think we're slightly too deep to raise GII here and now. If we had 20bb or so then it would be ok, but 30 means we can deffo call his cbet and see what the turn brings, especially as we have position.

Pot is only 4800 if we call the flop. Obviously that turn means we can't really fold to any reasonable bet, but even half pot and a call makes it 9600 heading to the river, leaving us 20bb behind for an audacious river steal/bluff, or check back with showdown value and hope we scoop the pot. I'd be surprised if he fired 3 streets with that hand, so we're likely to get at least a street (probably river) of maximising our position.