I may raise to 4K or 5K UTG, but your raise was not bad. Against the chip leader it would depend on what I've seen of him so far. I don't mind his re-raise, but I wouldn't push 99 vs. an UTG raise and push (then again that depends on what I've seen out of you as well). Something I've seen a LOT recently is players unwilling to get rid of ANY PP. I've seen people push or call with 22, 33, and 44 in this position and it's horrible. Since he was the chip leader though I think I probably would have just called with AK and seen the flop.

His call and raise is absolutely horrible.

Still I am not a huge fan of risking my tournament life when I am 2:nd in chips with AK against shown aggression.

Not if you're playing to win. Being a good player and having 40% of the chips, you should win that tournament way more than 40% of the time. And if you're not willing to go bust with AK at the final table, what are you looking to play with? Blinds are too high to play much more than preflop poker. Folding AK imo, is just not an option here.

Not if you're playing to win. Being a good player and having 40% of the chips, you should win that tournament way more than 40% of the time. And if you're not willing to go bust with AK at the final table, what are you looking to play with? Blinds are too high to play much more than preflop poker. Folding AK imo, is just not an option here.

I've had the same issue in the Sit and goes at the final table i don't like to go bust w/ AK it is perfectly fine when risking less than 1/2 your stack but to risk all of it all-in before the flop is a different thing entirely, the chip leader is using his chips and bullying the table but he has an edge that he likely to exploit, assuming the raise is from the BB he knows that if you call he will be out of position, definitely a PP high or mid, or at best 60/40, if you think about it QQ isn't laying down here either knowing you have AK or possibly better, i'd rather put all my chips in with the edge over AK than with AK itself, remember it is a drawing hand, and at this point you have little if no fold equity, and do you want to go all-in on a draw or not? AK is nice to look at but sometimes it belongs in the muck, if you lay it down here the chip leader will bully you again when you have him dominated and you'll double through with a better hand.