OK, I am going to try to be constructive here...
grizzleybeers;355730 wroteFinal table in a small tournament with an average chip stack.
I was dealt pocket JJ on the button. I raised the blinds up 4x. Everyone folded except a guy early position.
Is 4x a typical raise in your game? Usually towards the final table of a tournament 2.5x to 3x is the range for raises - weighted more towards 2.5x. 4x seems like a hand that you want to take the blinds and want to avoid a confrontation with. This could have been exactly what is going through your opponent's mind - this pot could be one that can be easily taken away from you.
Flop came down 4clubs, 10diamonds, 8clubs.
The man checked to me and I thought I was in pretty good position so I raised about 60% of the pot. He calls the bet and now I'm left with three thoughts. Either he has QQ,KK,AA. Or he has a 10. Or he has a flush draw.
OK.
Turn card is 7hearts.
He checks again, I decide the best thing to do is too raise because that card couldn't have helped him. Once again I raise around 60% of the pot. I made sure that this raise wouldn't commit him, but it didn't matter. He went over the top and re-raised me all in.
Now, that didn't really frighten me because I wasn't committed before. So this smelt like a semi-bluff.
OK, so if it is a semi-bluff (which it is - 13 outs on the river assuming that you don't have the Jc) you shouldn't be scared - you're ahead.
Personally I thought he had 10's.{/QUOTE]
Huh? I thought you said that it smelt like a semi-bluff?
I was wrong however. This fellow had 5-3clubs.
And you do the fist-pump because you are at worst a 73% favorite to double up.
He hit his flush on the river and I was basically crippled for the tournament.
And that's poker. Sometimes you do everything right and it doesn't work out.
I have analyzed this hand over and over. I can't figure out what I should have done. Who plays with 5-3 in early position
Is this just a fish getting lucky. Or should I have raised pre-flop even more. Or what else could I have done?
I don't know how sophisticated your opponent was, or how much the pre-flop raises usually were, but I already explained my reasoning on what the opponent was thinking - if the usual raises were 2.5x - 3x then your 4x raise really says "I'm scared of playing this hand" (usually a middle pair 7s to Js) - so any semi-connected suited cards could be a profitable hand if you combine the chances of hitting the hand and being able to bluff any "scary" flops.
Opponent picked up a flush draw on the flop, and an inside straight draw on the turn - at which point they decided to push with their semi-bluff (with 12 outs). If they read you the way I've stated then the semi-bluff should work a good percentage of the time, and if it doesn't work they still have 11 or 12 outs to win the pot.
Of course I could be wrong - he could have just been a lucky fish who loves playing 53 for their stack - that I can't explain away ;-).
You really didn't do anything wrong. Like I said before - you can do everything right in Poker and something can still go wrong. Don't knock it though - the corollary to this is that you can do everything wrong and still get rewarded - and that's what keeps the fish coming to Poker games.
You've also done a good thing by analyzing the hand afterwords - but you have to change your frame of mind from being "results oriented" to "process oriented". Try to see in each hand if you made the best decisions - although it may not be immediate, if you are making good decisions then eventually the results will come.