NOVICE VIEW - A little bit more ambitious

Last night I decided to try and take a step up. I entered a $5 satellite for a seat worth $500 in a Paradise Poker Aussie Million qualifier. I actually surprised myself, as I made the final table and was eliminated in 8th place of 89 entrants.

What first struck me about this tournament (I had never played in a tournament qualifier, and never in any game that allowed re buys), was how much looser the play was compared to a sit and go. The first four hands involved someone going all in. Now if you are used to the sit and go`s, which are normally quite tight, this seems like a total feeding frenzy. Problems is, it can be quite infectious, especially considering that you can re buy as much as you like. It was quite evident that some players were going all in with mediocre cards, hoping to build up an early stack. I resisted, figuring craps is a better option if I wanted to roll dice. However, I figured out you can use this all in mania to your advantage, is if you hit good run of cards. I hit 1010, KK, and AK consecutively and called all in three times in a row and won, which set my stack up nicely.

To cut to the chase, I managed to get to the final table with the third biggest stack. By this time the blinds were going up every 5 minutes. I again feel like my decision making wasn`t great. I almost feel like in this final high pressure stages I was laying down cards I should have played and visa versa. I finally played 10cJc aggressively from the big blind. I flopped an inside straight draw. An aggressive player (the chip leader) raised all in on the flow and I decided to call. He beat me out with a pair of kings. All in all I think I played well. The blinds were 3000 and 6000 at this stage and I felt I had to make a move. I should probably not have called. Or should I have?