Ok, so last week on Prima, with the blinds 100/200, I had about 8000 in chips. To my left are 6 stacks sitting on under 800 each. None of these stacks were fighting back to raises. I just want to make sure I was correct in my thought here, that I should be raising almost every hand with them in the blinds, knowing that they couldn't push me off anything, in hopes of either stealing their blinds or knocking them out.

Second part of this thread: To my immediate right sits the table chip leader. He has been playing hyper-aggressive doing exactly what I was wanting to do, which was steal the blinds from these short stacks. Unfortunately, I couldn't fight back, as I was running card dead, and any chance to steal with a reraise got reraised back.

Finally, I pick up pocket nines, and he does his usual raise in MP. I immediately jam. My thinking here is that he has been running over the table, and any other reraise he's seen me make has been folded to a reraise from him. First and foremost, I need to brush him back, or at least attempt to. Second, this isn't a bad hand to do it with, as I think right now I'm at worst a 50% favorite to win the hand if he does call. If he did pick up a monster, that's the way it goes, but I felt like I was the favorite here.

In the end, he did call with AK and flopped a King, but was my thinking correct here?

very correct

you want that ******* to go OHNOOOOOO and fold. You are the boss of the table, no one else. Prima's blinds escalate too fast and too high to allow passive play to work - that's how it is with pretty much every sit n go I've played. Hands you're afraid of: QQ,KK,AA, AK - possibly. what's his chipstack? If you're pushing for 90% of his stack, I can't see him calling w/JJ,10,10, J10,QJ,KQ,AQ unless he's a pretty crazy player - and you still have edge over those hands. If he's dumb and calls w/88, oooh you're an 80% favorite - you also have folding equity here and table image improvement - i.e. he'll stop messing with you unless he has big hands.

BUT

as a rebuttle to the 99 play,
folding can be correct. Depends on your goal. Are you satisfied with 3rd? Think you can take him down heads up even if he outstacks you 3:1? If so, play tight and let him do the dirty work, after all blinds are 100/200 and even when you're up against AK, it's still a coinflip. You've got more than enough to wait for a better hand.

Personally, I like the 99 push. You've got edge over him as long as he does not have higher pocket pair, allowing you to get an even bigger stack, which then lets you push all the short stacks around, pretty much guaranteeing first place. Thinking long term is preferable - but tournament hold'em is more situational than longterm thinking imo. Why? Because while 99 push is more profitable - let's say you win the race, your chances of 1st place are probably like 90%. But what about folding and looking for a better spot? Let's say you fold and you don't pick up KK or AA against this guy, and eventually you're heads up with a 1:3 chip disadvantage - you've placed 2nd guaranteed and you have a chance to outperform and take 1st again.
Worst situation with the 99: you fold and bust out. It's reallllllllly unlikely when u have 8k vs 800 chips. So 2nd worst situation is you come in 3rd. If you don't mind this very unlikely situation, go for the folding.

It's all preference. Both are fine decisions because you cannot predict the outcome of the hand.

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the Shortstack question: Was it just 7 people left? You with 8k and the rest w/800? If that's the case, I would push, even with 2,7o, until you get hurt 3x (or once or twice if you're cautious - really depends on how much you wanna gamble). (as long as 8k guy isn't in the same hand)

I say 3 max - you lose all 3 times and don't pick up blinds, leaves you with 5600 chips.

If one person called all 3 times, he'd have 3200 chips w/the rest at 800. If 3 different people called, then you have 5400 vs 1600 vs 1600 vs 1600 vs 800 etc - still giving you an edge to steal blinds - course you'd do that w/hands better than 2,7o right?

Is this a SNG, or a MTT?

If MTT - how many players left, what is the average stack size, payout structure, etc.

If a SNG - I don't like butting heads with the other big stack at the table, regardless of my cards, if it can be helped. Sure, with aces, kings, etc. if he wants to tangle so be it, but the middle pairs are dangerous cards to be playing back to the only player that can cripple/put you out. SNG's are all about making the money, and even though you have a prime table to be stealing a ton of blinds, if the other big stack is doing the same thing as you want to be doing, sometimes it is just best to let him do his thing...