Semi-recent spot at a $150 live MTT final table.

The tournament had a $5425 prize pool, and the payout structure was pretty top heavy, and is as follows:

1st - $1631
2nd - $1139
3rd - $813
4th - $623
5th - $515
6th - $406
7th - $298

Some context first:

At this point, I believe I was 5th/7 players remaining in chips with ~260k.

I had a pretty decent read on a few players to my left (unfortunately not the V), and had seen the B/SB/BB in the hand play very aggressively and use their large stacks to 3b jam over opens to steal often.

V was a middle-aged woman who seemed competent and was sitting on my direct left to start the hand, and had me way covered with about ~550k and was 1st/2nd in chips.

OTTH

Stacks:
H - HJ, ~260k, 5th chips
V - CO, 550+k, 2nd chips
Button - chipleader, 600k+
SB - 7th chips, ~150k
BB - 3rd/4th chips w middling stack, 300-400k

Please help me out and let me know what mistakes/things I couldve done differently at every street!

Blinds 7000/14000/14000, Hero 260k, ~18bbs
Folds to Hero in the HJ who looks down at AQ

Hero?

At the time I was unsure of what to do here with an awkward stack depth as I obviously want to get all my chips in the middle. I thought that at the time, my stack was at a really awkward size at ~18bbs and didn't want to just open shove, so I figured I could maybe induce from one of the aggro players behind me. So, I made what I think now is a silly mistake and opened to 2bb, 28k, leaving myself about 232k.

V in the CO just flat calls the 28k, and unfortunately for me the B, SB, and BB fold, leaving me HU out of position against a relatively unknown player.

Anything I shouldve done different pre?

Flop
Pot: 91k
A96

Hero?

Not sure why I was thinking this at the time, but I actually wanted to induce from the CO as I thought she would, for the most part, have a super capped range. I figured that her value range would be, for the most part, dominated by mine and my specific hand. So, I checked hoping to check/raise. I think I am pretty wrong in this line of thinking, but not sure, which is why I am here asking for help.

Anyways, V does what I wanted her to at the time and bets 90k, basically pot.

I thought about it for a little bit and came to the conclusion that she can reasonably have a few traps that she would just flat my LP open pre with, but otherwise can freely bet a lot of straight and flush draws that just flat pre that maybe view my check as weakness with a medium/high pair that didn't like the A high board? Not sure though.

I reasoned that if I just call and let the pot get to 271k and leave myself 142k behind, I don't know what other hands I have that would play this way and either donk jam river for ~55% pot or face a tough decision if a bad card falls on the turn.

Eventually, I just shove the rest of my 232k in the middle, as I could reasonably mix c/r bluffs this way that have equity (or so I think).

Results below in the spoiler, don't open unless you want to see them.

It's tough to give advice without the stack distribution. 3 aggro players behind with big stacks, and two shorter stacks (how short?), is the villain from the hand the player in 4/7? What was her stack?

Sometimes it's a slamdunk shove pre, sometimes it's a raise-evaluate, and sometimes it may even be an open fold (although with this payout structure, I doubt that happens on many stack distributions).

The postflop decisions are also stack distribution dependent.

I will withhold clicking the spoiler for now.

Hey man, thanks for the advice, I had the V chips/stack and position in the original post, but I can't edit the post to add the rest so I put them in a post below.

The size of the shortstacks is the important part for ICM considerations. I can tidy up the post for you.

Last place has 11bb and the payjump is small so there's enough info to work with now.

You should have close to 0 raise folds here since losing those 2bb is significantly more costly than the potential of stealing the blinds is beneficial, so if you have a raising range it will be strong and linear. I'd be inclined to jam every time you vpip here.

Very awkward stack distribution. Someone might plug it into an ICM calculator for you.

Thanks appreciate that, and yeah that makes sense. Hopefully someone comes along and does that for me

You think pure jamming 18bb is my only play here?

I think you can r/f sometimes as an exploit against most $150 live players, it just isnt getting punished enough by rejams. But AQs wants to raise/call anyways. I dont think there is much elasticity between a recs calling range vs a jam and their rejamming range, like there should be. If they have a hand strong enough to go with they will go with it.

I mostly play on a US site where the recs tend to be the live rec player type. Too loose early on and too tight late. And I print at FTs by r/fing into 10-15bb stacks that should be rejamming much wider but they just dont. I do have to adjust vs better players and stop being so exploitable though

I think you played it fine.

Tempted to play it the same way pre, given aggressive btn+ but ofc shove less variance

A6o float is typical low stakes live horrible and you’re more than a little unlucky with the result, but postflop plays itself once you check.

But I wouldn’t check flop. I’d bet 25% and start to build value against stubborn anything. Correct CO flat range here is tiny, so you can take a punt to go from ‘unknown’ to ‘station / fish’ and play postflop accordingly.