Mid-late to late stages tourney strategy: passing up marginal +EV?

[RonFezBuddy]

I'd like to get your opinion on the concept that shoving from LP when it's folded to you is generally +EV and whether it is always right make a +EV play mid-late to late in a tourney, if you already have a solid stack and a negative outcome cripples or puts you out of a tournament.

This is a somewhat results oriented post but I have been observing that I am getting deeper and deeper in tournaments lately due primarily to stealing from LP, or calling steals from aggressive players based on reads.

These are all good things and definitely "breakout" type results for me. It's difficult at first to put these concepts into practice but once you get comfortable with assigning ranges and understanding +EV your game definitely changes and you understand the value of the chips in the pot compared to your hand. And just how important it is to accumulate chips.

However, I am also finding that while these improvements to my game are helping me get deep (for example final 2-3 tables of 1000+ fields frequently), I almost always eventually get busted on a steal or a resteal before the final table. So in short, the aggression is getting me close to the big stage, but knocking me out when the SB/BB wakes up with a decent hand or outdraws me.

For example, I recently had A8 in the BB late in a tourney. The button was fairly aggressive and raised 4x the blinds. I had him covered 60k to 40k when blinds are 2k - 4k. I thought I sniffed a steal. Based on his range, I estimated that a resteal was +EV. I was correct. He had J8 and called (incorrectly I would think). The fact that he hit a few Js isn't the point. What I am unsure of is, is it worth the gamble there since so many of my chips are on the line if I am wrong or outdrawn? Especially since I was ok with chips.

In another example I had a decent stack in a $5r. I had 100k when average was about 65k. There were about 100 left of 2500. I had K10 on the button and shoved into the SB and BB (25k and 50k stacks respectively). The BB called with 66. My image was actually tight at this stage so I was suprised he went with 66. His hand held and I lost a big stack and was forced back into medium stack mode. Was this move right? I know it's +EV, but really should I have slowed down at this point and pass marginal +EV situations for very favorable +EV situations?

Or, should you take every +EV situation and hope to win a number of races and hand out a few bad beats in order to win a tourney?

Please note this line of questioning does not apply to middle stages. I believe that taking just about every +EV gamble during the middle stages makes a lot of sense because you need to build that stack. I am reffering specifically to mid-late to late stages of a tourney.

My sense is that I am doing something right, but not completely. Thanks for your input.