Pardon the confusion in terminology - I have yet to attain much experience in writing these posts, but in time, I'm sure that I will have an adequate grasp on such.

As to play 1, the idea of folding is probably best. If I had known BB, then maybe I would have pushed. However, given that he just joined the table AND he smooth called, a fold is the right play. Fair enough.

Play 2 is a little trickier. Yes, I have "at best" a race. Though, theory aside on his range, my FEEL, my GUT, two factors I find greatly underutlized by some players, said he had AK. So I was basically assuming AK all along.

The more general question becomes when in a multi-tourney do you want to take your 56/44 given about 1.8 to 1 pot odds. At 2200 chips with the blinds soon to go up to 60/120, I'm thinking that this might be the time. On the other hand, since most players at the table were fairly easy to read, I may have wanted to try to chop away at them on flops and turns for another round. Of course, everytime I would be trying to win a flop, I'd be potentially sacrificing anywhere from 25% to 100% of my chips. Had the blinds still been at 25/50 with, say, 5 or more minutes to go, this would have been a much easier fold. At 40/80 with two minutes to go, much harder. This is the game theory predicament that I'm most concerned about.