when to push, when not to push, wsop satelite

[uppopsthedevil]

golden palace wsop satelite, 2 spots to grand final, 3rd gets $130. clawed my way to final table,7 left about 5th in chips when i'm dealt 9's. 3rd off button. bb is short stack, my 1st impression was a push all in (blinds 600-1200) i had about 10k. player to my right goes all-in. i had him slighly covered. thinking he might have a higher pair, i fold. he turns over7-8 off. and wins the pot with 8's. later we're down to 4 players, i'm still the short with about 36k, top 2 have just over 100k, player to my right (7-8 off suit) has about 62k, blinds 2k-4k. im dealt 4's in bb. 2 big stacks fold, sb raises to 10k. now my thinking is he hasn't rally shown down a hand i remember except for the 7-8 off suit. if he had a big pair he might just call hoping i reraise or do a stop and go on the flop. a all-in bet and i probably fold. it just seemed like he was trying a steal and if i re-raised he would fold. so i re-raise all-in for 32k. he thinks for a minute and calls turning over j-8 off suit. needless to say he hits a 4th heart on the river for a flush (he had 8h i had 4h). did i play these 2 hands wrong, my question is when do you push, any pair etc, if i call with 9's the 2nd hand never occurs, because he's out. (he won the seat into the grand final, and then when i checked the touney was not online with about 1800 chips left. either he never played or got disconnected). thanks