Variance, fear of it, and dealing with it.

[Erik Blazynski]

recently I was at the final table of a live tournament. There are 3 of us left and I am the small blind, the big blind and I have the same amount of chips (30k) SB=4k BB=8k.

The BB is a thinking tight aggressive type that knows my game well and understands the range of hand that I might raise or push with late in a tourney against a random hand. I look down and I see A-7 off, and being in the small blind and having only 4 BB left, I am inclined to push, but I know that this player understands the situation and knows that I would make this move and is likely to call with just about anything. This makes me only a slight favorite over most hands that this player holds. I hate getting my money in as a slight favorite (is this wrong). So I called the BB, and the flop comes with an A, perfect, just what I wanted, now I can get my money in cause I am surely a bigger favorite now. So I push. I am called the player had K-4 of clubs. Incidentally the flop hit with 2 clubs, the river falls a club and I am left with T500, eliminated 2 hands later. I feel like the variance of this game has me tied up in knots I don't bet because I have been screwed by it, and then my fear manifested on the river. Did I bring this on myself? Did I play too cautiously?