Stars $5 Deepstack, 15 players left

[Gomez22]

Let me preface the actual HH with a little history and my take on what's going in this particular situation.....

I've been playing pretty well the last few weeks getting to the final 3 tables in 5 of my last 20 MTTs (for me, this is goot!), and in 4 of those cases, I made the top 15, so, at the time, I feel great about my game.

In this MTT, I got a big stack early and used it well, being in the top-20 in chip count from late in the first level until I busted out on the hand below in 15th place. I had made some good reads and have learned to play position much better than I used to (thanks to sweating Rizen and Shaniac, mostly I would guess without their knowing).

On to the hand, and my personal thoughts...

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t2400 (8 handed) internettexasholdem.com

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

<font color="#C00000">UTG (t183433)</font>
UTG+1 (t152998)
MP1 (t75983)
<font color="#C00000">Gomez (t59168)</font>
CO (t50646)
Button (t90322)
SB (t131998)
BB (t99707)

Preflop: Gomez is MP2 with 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
UTG calls t2400, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Gomez raises to t9600</font>, <font color="#666666">4 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to t17050</font>, Gomez calls t7200.

The UTG player that raises here has been 'playing the big stack' well and made some raises and calls that seemed a biit loose to me at the time. When he re-pops me here, I don't really like it, but I will have position and I personally think his range in somewhat larger than TT-AA, AJ-AK.

Flop: (t35350) 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">UTG bets t43200</font>, Gomez calls t42118 (All-In).

A great flop for me, but a bad situation to be in here. When he pushes, I tanked and thought about what he might have here. I sorta narrowed his range a bit, but it was still what I would consider a 'large amount of hands' that he could have (AA-66, AK-A8, KQ-KJ is pretty close to the range I was thinking of at the time), With his push, I'm getting about 1.9-1 to call, and I figure immediately that if I make the flush, I win. I then start to think about his range here and call with about 2 seconds left in my time bank, thinking that it's a very thin call, but one that I may NOT be a 7-3 dog in (higher PP).

Turn: (t120668) 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

River: (t120668) Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

Final Pot: t120668

OK.... this is the first time in a LOOOOONNNNNGGGG time I have called off my stack with a draw (something I really don't believe in too much) but here, with the range I gave him, I think (based on pure mathematics at the time) that this is very close to a negligable decision (calling and folding are BOTH so close that neither is wrong). Given my description of the hand and my reads at the time, does anyone have any comments to make about this play?