Question for you Adam,

I'm playing in a tourney of 400 players, and I'm doing pretty good. Only 12 players left, and I'm in 4th spot at 125k chips, the chip leader has close to 290k chips. Most players have around 50k chips. Now, I've been playing against player X for a couple tables, and he's been very aggressive playing crap hands. I'm in no hurry since I have lots of chips, but haven't had the hands to confront him. Now I get moved to a table with player X and the chip leader. Player X has gotten lucky twice and is up to 125k chips. The chip leader is bullying all the players on the table and flaunting it by showing his cards.

Blinds are 3000,6000 - 6 players at the table.

I'm on the button, and the chip leader is to my left and is the SB (pain in the ass, always re-raising so it's hard to figure out what to bet) and player X is the BB.

One person limps, everyone else folds. Now normally I'd bet hard on QQ, but I figure the way these two players are playing they'll bet and try to force me and this other guy out. So I call. Sure enough, the chip leader bets 20,000 chips, and player X calls, and the one guy folds.

Now I figure player x has something, but nothing exceptional. I don't think the chip leader has a hand. I figure I'll buy the pot or one of these morons will call me. I go all in, chip leader folds, player x calls with a 99. Needless to say, player x gets the 9.

Now, obviously that was a bad beat and I read the players right. But I still lost, and I'm sure I could have made it to the final table if I play conservatively. Should I have made the stand there to be the chip leader, or waited until I got to the final table to try to take them down.

The only problem with playing the QQ conservatively is that these two players were playing so hyper aggresive I really would have no way to read them after a flop. I still would have probably been beaten after the flop because the 9 fell on the flop, and there was nothing that would have scared me off.