Blinds are 1000/2000 antes are 200. 7 handed, the pot is initially 4,400.

Bit of background on the players, small blind is drinking and very loose. He has been playing 75% of his hands or something absurd so most of the time I don't give him much credit. MP2 is older, but also on the slightly loose side, not as nitty as some of the other older players. Hero is TAG and has been folding tons of trash hands lately, so I feel like my image is good at this point.

UTG folds
MP1 folds
MP2 (30,000 to start the hand) raises to 5,000
HJ folds
Button folds
Small Blind (45,000 to start the hand) calls 5,000 total
(Hero 65,000 to start the hand) Big Blind has AJ

Hero goes all in on the big blind for ~65,000

Original raiser tanks and calls with A6
small blind folds

Flop K 10 10 , turn 3, river 6

I ended up going all in a few hands later w KQ suited and lost, and later my friend told me I played this hand badly with AJ, even though I got called by a worse hand and got sucked out on.

Was it wrong for me to shove preflop there with ~14K in dead money and I feel like I almost always will have the best hand or maybe be flipping + the fold equity. Also the blinds and antes go up quickly and you have to take your edges when you have them.

My friend thinks I should have just made it 14,500 or 15,000 because it "looks stronger" and they would have just folded. I felt like I played it fine and got called by a worse hand in A-6 off. Should I just raise it to like 15,000 with the intention of calling a shove?

Thanks for reading any input would be appreciated. I want to look to get better in certain spots that come up in live tournaments where the blinds go up quickly and stacks become shallow. I have always felt like part of my game that is OK is spots where everyone is short stacked and looking for good spots to shove.

You cant justify your action by saying that your opponent called you with worse

if you want to analyze your play you shouldn't be worried about the results

you have over 30 BB's and there's no crazy short effective stack. I don't see why you would want to push here ( AJs vs A6o.. A6o wins 30% of the time)

Payout structure would be useful but I think optimally you can 3bet and with that flop you can safely continue with a gutshot and play a little poker..

you were unlucky to be sucked out on but happens to everyone and if you want to win tournaments you shouldn't put most of your chips on the line with a subpar hand

Hands from live buyin mtt <$100 should be placed in ssmtt. This is a standard hand and more of a bad beat, however. Your friend is being extremely results oriented when he says he wants a hand like A6 to instead fold to our shove with this hand.