$150 NLHE MTT Deep Stacked: What would you do in this situation

starting stack is 15,000Were at level 9
Blinds are 600/1200
antes are at 200
my current stack is at 22,000, dwindling down from 30,000 as the blinds progress and the hands im being dealt are mostly trash. I wake up with pocket queens
I am under the gun. I fire out a bet of 5,000. I get one caller on the big blind. that puts the pot to about 12,500. flop comes :


8 7 3 rainbow


with my last about 17000 I push all- in after the big blind checks. He instacalls with a set of 8s and thats my fate. My tournament fate has been a similar trend. Grind grind grind and get knocked out with a strong hand. what i need to know is what should I be doing differently

Your pre flop bet sizing of over 4x is way too big. Standard raise these days is 2.2x-2.5x.


600/1200/200
UTG QQ raise to 2640
folds to BB


Now he either 3 bets to something like 7800 and you can 4 bet shove and put him in a bad spot OR he flat calls and you have to play post flop in which the pot is around 7200 with you having about 20,000 behind, SPR of about 3. On that board, getting check raised can mean a lot of straight draws with the BB range containing a lot of suited connectors, T9, JT, 65, 54 or the set, which he had. That is why I would probably check this flop, call his turn lead and evaluate the river.


You may or may not still go bust here, but I think that it is a much better line

I probably raise about 2.5-3x pre. That allows for a smaller flop bet. Honestly though, if he shoves I may still call. It's a tough spot. I could fold though

I really like the limp re-raise line when having monsters UTG. Especially if the table dynamics is to raise pre flop and not limp.
Your big bet of little over 4BB is not that bad, I mean, this particular hand would have had the same outcome even if you had bet smaller. I don't mind the shove either considering you had less then 20BB to begin with, that being said, I would probably be more inclined to just shove pre flop, rather then letting other players call in position over you.