Facing a Lunatic

Hi everyone. I am a 2+2 newbie, so forgive me if my question has been asked before. I had a question about tournament strategy from a hand I played earlier tonight in a tournament. The tournament was a freeroll.

I had accumulated about 8,000 chips. The blind were still low and my M was about 40, good enough for about 30 among a field of about 500 at the time.

I was at my initial table. The player to my left, who had not been there since the beginning, suddenly showed up and made a series of all-ins. (I know this is not likely to happen in a real money entry fee tournament, but the situation could easily arise when switching tables in a regular tournament.) In those all-in situations, he showed down J6 and A9 twice. Both all ins were or about 1/3 of his stack, which was about 4000, if I remember correctly.

The hand in question: I get 99, and raise 4x the BB. The player on my left goes all in, leaving me with 4.8-3.2 pot odds to call, which risks about half my stack.

From a pot odds perspective, this is a clear call, even if I thought there was a significant change of an overpair or two overcards. But here is my question: Regardless of the odds, is it worth risking half my stack at an early point in the tournament, when I know that I could very likely end up in a coin flip situation?

He turned over Q10, a Q hit, and I lost. I managed to cash in the freeroll anyway, but wonder if avoiding the big loss might have allowed me to finish higher, in a situation in which I might have been able to exploit a greater advantage. On the one hand, it seems these are some of the gambles you need to take to build a big chip stack. On the other hand, potentially putting the tournament on the line for a potential coin flip doesn't sit right with me, either.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[Pepsquad]

Don't ever be afraid of getting it all-in with mid pockets against the type of opponent you are describing. 9 out of ten hands against an opponent such as this will end up being a coin-flip scenario AT WORST. Because when I run across fellows such as this in a freeroll the times they pick up AA-TT are the hands they finally DON'T push pre-flop.

[runout_mick]

You were getting way over 1:1 pot odds where you were (conservatively) a 55% favourite or better to win the pot...

Exactly what situation vs this opponent were you looking for? To fold here is way too weak, you got what you wanted (heads up vs this moron, holding a hand that likely dominates him...).

Tough that he beat you, but if you think that folding in this situation is a good idea, you shouldn't have raised your 9s in the first place since you knew he was likely to go all-in.

Next time in this situation decide BEFORE you raise whether you will be willing to call his all-in, and if the answer is no then DON'T RAISE. I can only find a fold here if captain all-in does his thing and a conservative player or 2 push over top of him. Barring that this is a waaaay easy insta-call.

Hope this helps...

Edit: p.s. welcome to the forum.