I still want to know how good (or bad) my 15,500 bet was though! But I really dont think I should've went all in due to the fact that there were 2 other players with 8K and 10K remaining and being swung in that situation would've seriously sucked
$15,500 is a fine bet. It does everything I mentioned in my earlier post advocating $13,500.
But let's look at bigger bets...
The only additional risk you run by betting $20K instead of $15,500 is the chance that you lose while BR3 or BR4 pushes.
You already will be passed by them if you lose and either or both of them win.
So almost all of the "swing risk" already exists with a bet of $15,500.
For my opinion, I would trade the additional half-swing risk on the downside, in order to gain a half-swing benefit on the upside.
In other words, if BR1 pushes (or of course, if he loses), I win the tournament if I win my hand if I bet at least $20K.
That offsets the downside risk (equal probability of half-swing down and half-swing up, and I'm risking $4K in prize money to gain $10K).
(Parse that idea carefully; there's a lot of data in that sentence.)
It's also worth discussing whether more than $20K is a good idea.
Not knowing what BR1 bet, I didn't see any point in betting more than $20K.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that betting a little more does help, because he made a minimum bet.
The question of whether it makes sense to essentially go all-in because of the chance BR1 might bet very small is difficult for me to answer. It would partly depend on player personality.
Much of my tournament play over the years has been against very skilled opponents, and I still to this day often don't account sufficiently for possible bad decisions by my opponents. Live and learn.
Maybe all-in $25,500 isn't such a bad idea here.
