$11 NL HE MTT: how did I do?

PokerStars, $10.27 + $0.73 - Hold'em No Limit - 350/700 (70 ante) - 7 players
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appetency (UTG): 20,630 (29 bb)
ratbat615 (MP): 9,230 (13 bb)
Runkuns (MP+1): 5,136 (7 bb)
lusiadasinvoker (CO): 55,673 (80 bb)
ladysman269 (BU): 9,270 (13 bb)
Grossartem (SB): 16,107 (23 bb)
pcmkrX (BB): 23,193 (33 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,540) Hero (ratbat615) is MP with Q♦ A♣
1 fold, ratbat615 (MP) raises to 1,400, Runkuns (MP+1) 3-bets to 5,066 (all-in), 1 fold, ladysman269 (BU) 4-bets to 9,200 (all-in), 2 players fold, ratbat615 (MP) calls 7,760 (all-in)

Flop: (24,926) 9♥ T♠ 4♥ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: (24,926) 6♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: (24,926) T♥ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: 24,926

Showdown:
ladysman269 (BU) shows K♦ T♦ (three of a kind, Tens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 27%, Flop: 21%, Turn: 12%, River: 100%)

Runkuns (MP+1) shows J♠ J♣ (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 38%, Flop: 57%, Turn: 74%, River: 0%)

ratbat615 (MP) shows Q♦ A♣ (a pair of Tens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 35%, Flop: 22%, Turn: 14%, River: 0%)

ladysman269 (BU) wins 24,926


Preflop: I have about 12bbs top 30 get a ticket to play in the silver pass tournament. I am about 60th out of about 170 so a lot of small stacks. I am in LJ when I pick up AQo so I min raise the HJ moves in and the BU movies in. The HJ and the BU were battling all day, so I was pulled in their drama. my question is should I have waited for a better spot?

I think you can wait for a better spot with 12bb.

I would probably open shove in this spot.

If I'm not mistaken the structure is pretty quick, so I'd just open shove and hope for a double up.

Since you already invested about 20% of your stack in the hand, the call is okay but are usually always behind with AQo when there's a 4-bet before.

With 13BB you can either open shove or min-raise. The hands, that are nice to min-raise, are those, where you have an easy decision facing 3-bets, and without ICM-pressure AQo fall into that category, since you are happy to call off any player at the table and try to dubble up. Its also not a disaster, if you get called, because AQo usually either flop a strong top pair or nothing, so there are not to many tough postflop spots.

So I think, its fine to min-raise here, and my plan would be to get it in against any 3-bet. However when two players jam behind you, my default would be to fold, since the second player should be on a very strong range. But this is why, its important to pay attention to the action and/or use a HUD. Because when you say, that these two guys had been battling, then its reasonable to assume, BTN is jamming wider, than he should.

And this is fully confirmed by BTN showing up with something as weak as KTs, which is way to wide in a non-bounty format given the action ahead of him. So this was a perfectly fine play, which just did not work out this time. And thats just the nature of fast games like this. We will be all-in preflop or on the flop a lot, and we are not always going to win those "flips".