Final table, I was chip leader, 5 players left, with 550k chips. Utg small stack stack raised 3x on 15k/30k blinds and I was in button.
If I call I would become #3 stack if I lost. I re-raised, and he re-raised all in and I called. HU I lost to his KQs and I became small stack, and eventually busted out. I still had 240k chips after losing exchange, but did I make the correct decision there as chip leader? If I finished even top 3 I could have made several hundreds more.
This depends on the people you are playing against and the stakes in the tournament. Lower buy-in tournaments are more volatile, because the filed of players includes a higher percentage of players who do not play well. In addition, they push in with things like KQs and even KQo.
Generally those all ins are going to turn into a bingo match. If you don't do them, you don't double up and easily get pushed around and out. If you do and lose, you go out.
So, personally, I've started rolling with the punches and taking some more risks. Such as shoving with TT. I've shoved with QQ many times only to be beat with something like KJo.
However, if you are playing in a higher stakes tournament, I don't think you would expect to see others playing non optimal poker. In that instance you would have folded the TT when you got 3 bet. In a higher stakes game, that is a good indication of AA or KK
It really seems to me that the lower stakes tournament involve more risks, but if you can re-buy, it helps in a couple ways. First, people will be more willing to call you when you have the nuts. Second, you can rebuy if you get beat.
You ideally want to learn how to play optimally. However, at the same time, you have to adjust your game to the other players and find out how to exploit their play.