Played my first MTT last night, a little private thing. $3+0, 30 players, top 5 places pay.

I finished 8th, which was for me a very happy result. Some people would probably be annoyed to play all that long time and finish just out of the money, but for me it was all about the learning experience and the fun.

Here's the only hand that has bugged me about the night. I don't remember all the details, and I'm sure the details about the chip stacks aren't quite right, but they're close enough to give you a sense of what was happening & what I was thinking.

We are down to 12 or so to go. 6 at my table. I just doubled up a minute ago to move from #12 chip stack up to about #10. Huge blinds + shorthanded table = eating me alive. Everybody is playing pretty tight to make the last table, but the big stacks are regularly making us little guys play to hold on to our blinds and stay at the table.

The player immediately to my right has been vouched for as a generally solid player by Sunbob (one time when all 3 of us happened to be at the same micro-limit table). This guy has won this weekly tournament several times. He's been to my immediate right for most of the tourney, and I have been pushing him around all night when we were both in the blinds with no other callers. He calls, I raise, he folds. Or he calls, I raise, he calls, then I bet on the flop and he folds. I've definitely noticed the pattern and I'm sure he has too.

In general, nobody is betting except with decent hands. Underbets of the pot are common, with minimum bets and minimum raises extremely common. But with the blinds this big relative to all our stacks, I'm sure that's normal. (Like I said, my first MTT; I'm not sure....)

I am in the BB. Blinds are up to 150/300, I have about 1900 chips after posting my blind, he has maybe 3500 to put him in the middle of the pack.

Everybody folds to him in the SB. He minimum raises to 600. I put him on a steal attempt and payback time now that he has me in this tough place, so I call with [Tc].

Pot is 1200. I have about 1600 left. Flop comes Q95 with one club.

He bets the pot (1200).

Obviously a re-raise all-in or fold situation (no point in flat calling, is there?). I think, and think, and think, and think. And worry a lot.

What's your play? What does he have? Results later.

With a pretty short stack left if you fold, and the table being short-handed, you won't have much time before you have to pick another hand and go all in. Right now you at least have top pair, and a couple runner runner draws. But no, calling definetly isn't an option. If I found myself in that position, I would probably push all in. But then again, I never enter the pot without raising once it gets short-handed.