Just call large raise vs push with monster early in tournament?

[SeriousStudent]

First round of pp 100+9 10/15 blinds.

Folded round to villian on button with t1500 who raises to 500. SB folds. I look down to see KK with my t1500 stack.

The range of hands I expect he has is A9-A3, KQ, KJ, 77-33.

I've always pushed in this situation, as I did in this hand, he calls and then lost to his A8.

But it got me thinking. He was correct to call my push, as I was giving him 2:1 odds and he had a 2:1 shot. All of the Ax range has a 2:1 compared to my KK. So there is no way I can make a raise that forces him to take a bad bet. Even if my cards were face up, he would be correct to call the all in bet.

What if I just called on the flop, and then bet out if there was no Ace. Then it would be clearly wrong for him to call with any of these hands unless he hit a set. If there is an Ace, I check and he bets, I fold leaving me with 1000.

Advantage of push play - chance to get a big stack of 3000 in the early round, giving me a lot of steal power. But I have a 35% chance of busting out.

Advantage of call play - most likely still end up with 2000 in chips, or at worst 1000. With mediocre players still at the table in the early rounds, even with 1000 I'm not in a bad position. Very small chance of busting out.

Do any of you just call in this situation, or always push as I have always done?

[A_PLUS]

What about when an Ace falls, and you fold when he bets his QQ? The biggest mistake you can make IMO is folding the best hand later in the hand.

[SeriousStudent]

You are correct. My belief is that almost all 100+9 players would not raise just blinds of 10/15 from the button with a 35x BB raise to 500 if they had a real hand of AK,AQ, AA-TT. So I am betting that your situation would not occur. I could however, check with the Ace on the flop and he bets out his low pocket pair and I fold. So I could still lose to a worse hand.