Bursting the bubble

Well lots of things happening this week. I've been playing pretty good, probably the best I've played overall since I started taking this stuff more seriously.

I decided to make a second deposit, not because I really needed it, but more to give me more options to play on different stakes and do sit & go tourneys.

I've always felt that my style of play was well suited to tournament, probably more than to cash games actually. So I did quite a few sit & go tournaments lately. Overall I am pretty happy with the way I've been playing in these, I feel the way I've played has given me good chances to make money finishes. That said, for some reason I always fall a bit short and seem to always be the one bursting the bubble! One such occurance that happened and can't get out of my mind is this hand.

We're playing 4 handed, blinds are at 100/200 and everyone is sitting between 3000 and 3500 chips. I have a slight chip lead with 3525.
I'm in the small blind, UTG calls the blind, button folds the action to me and I'm sitting on Qh-Jh. I decide to raise 3 times the big blind to make it 800 cause, well, I feel QJ suited is pretty decent and I don't want to let the big blind see the flop for free. Big blind folds to my bet and UTG calls.

Flop comes 6c Qd Jd. GREAT flop for me, I was guessing at that point that UTG must be having pocket cowboys, pocket aces or a big slick. I bet 1000, about half the pot, hoping he has KK or AA and calls. As a matter of fact he does call. Right there the only hand that beat me are either pocket Queens or pocket Jacks. I really doubt he would have called my raise pre-flop with pocket sixes. There are 2 diamonds on the board so I figure that after the turn it's either I go all in, making drawing to a flush pretty expensive, or I get careful if a third diamond comes.

Turn comes 7h. I make my move and go all in for 1725 more. that means he's got to put all his chips in to see the river. Now that's about 1400 more chips to see a 6500 pot. He calls. We both show our cards and he has Kd-7d. So basically right now any diamond or any King kicks me out of that tourney, that means he basically has 12 outs, so the odds for him to call were actually good.

And then of course the river came Kc and I was left with about 350 chips, a prayer and a story. Threw it all in on the next hand and then went home.

A few things about that hands :
1) I think I overplayed it a bit pre-flop considering my position. Just limping in might have been better.
2) If I was to play that hand aggressively I might has well go all in right after the flop. If he had KK or AA he would most likely have called anyway but his pot odds to draw to his flush (which was what he was basically trying to do) would not have been as good.

Overall though I don't think I played it that bad but I realise the few small mistakes that cost me my tournament life in that hand now that I go through it again. Guess that's all part of the learning process!

On a good sidenote I am playing really well in cash games lately and have been making a profit, so who knows... maybe I'll be back for more sit&go action soon enough!