Final Table at Crown

Decided to play the Thursday night tournament at Crown tonight & managed to finish 4th out of a field of 119. Its not the greatest structure in the world, with a 3k starting stack & 25 minute levels, but there are plenty of tournaments that are worse.
If there was one thing that my experiences in America taught me, it was that you need to go about accumulating chips right from the start of the tournament. This was my excuse for a key hand early in the tournament. I was in the BB (100/200) & there was a raise to 500 from UTG+1. The cutoff called & I defended with K3hh. The flop was 763 rainbow & I checked to the pre-flop raiser who bet 700. The cutoff folded & I considered my options. I had already committed 500 to the pot & had just over 1500 behind. There was a decent chance that my opponent had overcards to the board (in which case my pair of 3s would be in front) and even if he had an overpair (it seemed unlikely that he would have a set or straight here) I still had 5 outs to improve. Of course the opposing view had me with 1500 still in my stack after folding, which although short, was definitely not at the 'any two cards' stage, so all would not be lost. Eventually I decided to shove, hoping my opponent either folded (unlikely) or called & turned over AK, KQ or some other hand with a king & no pair. Of course neither of these eventualities happened & my opponent snap-called & turned over QQ to have me drawing thin. However given that the heading is not 'Early exit from tourney' I managed to bink a king on the turn to double-up, and this, combined with some run good & well-timed stealing allowed me to get to the final table as one of the chip leaders (of course I managed to crack KK with QT just before the final table when the money went in on a Q98 flop & I binked a T on the river ... but that's the punishment for my opponent not re-raising pre-flop with such a big hand). The final table was going reasonably smoothly & I managed to keep my stack at a healthy level, in spite of the most aggressive player at the table sitting to my direct left. This player would take the chip lead early on the final table & it was a big confrontation with him that would lead to my demise. We had got down to four handed, with the aggressive player to my left having just under half the chips in play in his stack. The hand in question saw me raise to 14k (blinds 3000/6000) with 55 on the button. My opponent in the SB re-raised to 32k after some thought & I decided to move all-in for an extra 51.5k on top of the re-raise. Ultimately my opponent decided to call, with the classic 'you're in front, but I have to call' line & turned over A7o. Of course there was an ace on the flop, as well as one on the turn for good measure & the 160k+ pot was shipped to the aggro guy as I collected my prizemoney and left.
I suppose its a good sign that I final tabled my first tournament back at Crown. Lets hope the run continues on Sunday & into the Victorian Championships!