Here are a couple of typical spots in which I have trouble, because of my awkward stack sizes and marginal hands. Not sure whether I should play these pots at all, and if so, what is my plan.

I was recently moved to each of these tables, so no reads on the villains. For the hands that I did see, everyone seemed to be playing basic TAG.

Hand #1:

Poker Stars, $150 + $12 NL Hold'em Tournament, 100/200 Blinds, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP1: 6,978
MP2: 5,145
Hero (CO): 3,230
BTN: 3,200
SB: 7,190
BB: 4,730
UTG: 5,127
UTG+1: 8,020

Pre-Flop: (300) 9 A dealt to Hero (CO)
4 folds, Hero raises to 500, 2 folds, BB raises to 4,730 and is All-In, Hero ??


Hand #2:

Poker Stars, $150 + $12 NL Hold'em Tournament, 150/300 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG+1: 8,353
Hero (UTG+2): 5,510
MP1: 16,525
MP2: 3,631
CO: 18,735
BTN: 1,745
SB: 18,805
BB: 6,570
UTG: 5,280

Pre-Flop: (585) 3 3 dealt to Hero (UTG+2)
2 folds, Hero raises to 800, 2 folds, CO raises to 18,720 and is All-In, 4 folds, Hero ??

Hand 1 I can find a fold here as you still have M = 9 and can get it in with a better hand.

Hand 2 I would fold low pockets in early position as I hate being a 20% favorite. As played I still fold but I find myself weak tight in this spot. Am I wrong?

Hand 1 fold.

Hand 2 fold pf.

The first hand seems like a stove question. You are going to have at best 40% equity against his range and TBH thats very generous. I think it would be closer if he was say the BTN and you could factor in the 300 chips the blinds adds to give you better pot odds but as is I don't think you can profitably call, especially w/out history.

Hand two is much closer and I actually look him up here, from what I've noticed thus far of tournies (I'm a ring player) guys hate to play postflop with AK/AQ/AJ, and raise huge preflop or just squeeze AI. Since I think his range is weighted towards like 66/77/AK/AQ and there are far more combo's of AK and AQ and b/c its about time for you to make a decision I look him up.

I appreciate comments on my analysis.

hand one as played I'd fold. I push preflop. Fold hand 2 preflop.

You would really open-shove 16 BBs in that spot? Seems like a donkish overbet. Would you play AA/KK the same way?

i fold 1 as played and fold 2 preflop.

I think I'd rather open shove than raise/fold from CO. I also think that how we play AA is somewhat irrelevant.

These are just observations. I'm not sure what I'd actually do here but raise-folding is not something I'd be doing in a vacuum.

agreed. how we'd play AA,KK is only relevant if we've been active lately, making raises and then we suddenly changed the raise amount. If I've been short and pushed a couple of times and double up w/ a marginal hand that was shown, I may be inclined to open push w/ aa,kk and opponent's calling ranging is going to be very wide given our LAG image.