First the hand and then a discussion to follow because these are the kinds of things I stay awake all night thinking about.

STAGE #382025766 TOURNEY ID 1019641 HOLDEM MULTI NORMAL TOURNAMENT NO LIMIT $100 - 2006-04-19 20:39:06 (ET)
Table: 46 (Real Money) Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 1 - DOLITTLE ($7445 in chips)
Seat 2 - MIKEW11802 ($4945 in chips)
Seat 3 - AREALPLAYER ($6405 in chips)
Seat 4 - SPENDIT ($12225 in chips)
Seat 5 - HOCKEYGOON ($2020 in chips)
Seat 6 - PAYMEDAMONEY ($430 in chips)
Seat 7 - SJAPPIE ($2765 in chips)
Seat 8 - JPMCCARTNEY ($4160 in chips)
Seat 9 - JAYCEE1974 ($4380 in chips)

DOLITTLE - Ante $25
MIKEW11802 - Ante $25
AREALPLAYER - Ante $25
SPENDIT - Ante $25
HOCKEYGOON - Ante $25
PAYMEDAMONEY - Ante $25
SJAPPIE - Ante $25
JPMCCARTNEY - Ante $25
JAYCEE1974 - Ante $25
SPENDIT - Posts small blind $100
HOCKEYGOON - Posts big blind $200

*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to PAYMEDAMONEY [Ad]
PAYMEDAMONEY - All-In(Raise) $405 to $405
SJAPPIE - Calls $405
JPMCCARTNEY - Folds
JAYCEE1974 - Folds
DOLITTLE - Folds
MIKEW11802 - Folds
AREALPLAYER - Calls $405
SPENDIT - Calls $305
HOCKEYGOON - All-In(Raise) $1795 to $1995
SJAPPIE - All-In(Raise) $2335 to $2740
AREALPLAYER - Folds
SPENDIT - Folds
SJAPPIE - returned ($745) : not called

*** FLOP *** [Qs][6h]
*** TURN ***
*** RIVER ***
*** SHOW DOWN ***
HOCKEYGOON - Shows [As] (One pair, fours)
PAYMEDAMONEY - Shows [Ad] (One pair, aces)
SJAPPIE - Shows [6s] (Three of a kind, sixes)
SJAPPIE Collects $3180 from side pot-1
SJAPPIE Collects $2250 from main pot
Seat 7: SJAPPIE won Total ($5430) All-In HI:($5430) with Three of a kind, sixes [6d 6s - P:6s,B:6h,P:6d,B:Kd,B:Qs]
Seat 8: JPMCCARTNEY Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 9: JAYCEE1974 Folded on the POCKET CARDS

Being the player UTG all-in w/ the Aces I'm estatic that the BB pushed and got rid of some of the competition. Then when I saw his cards, my immediate reaction was "What An Idiot!!!" But, after thinking about it for a while, I now have a slightly different take on it.

By the time it gets around to him, the pot is 2045. He seems to have 3 choices....
1 - Fold
2 - Call 205 for a chance to win 2045. He's getting 10 to 1, but against 4 other hands.
3 - Push which at 1st looks terrible with A4.

If he folds he is giving up any chance at a huge pot with great pot odds. If he calls and loses, which is most likely vs. 4 players then he is under 8xBB and in the danger zone. However, let's consider pushing.

If he pushes and somehow convinces the 3 other players to fold, he is now still only risking 205 to win 2045, but against 1 player. He can't possibly put me on AA UTG with only 430 left. This is a desperation all-in. True, he ran into someone else with a bigger chip stack who couldn't give up a small PP, which almost always seems to be the case lately. However, nobody really showed any strength by raising to isolate me before it got to him so is it not a good gamble on his part?

Those are the kind of hands you have to win to do well in MTTs. It really is more of a lottery than we'd like.

Personally I don't bother to call or raise, with A4o. His chipstack is fine and better opportunities await than the probable coinflip he's getting (he has to figure you have two middle cards to his A4 at least. There is one player to act after him, and as you saw, it was a standard "pocket pair automatic allin monkey".