Yesterday I posted a question which was emailed to me by Dave Westbay regarding opinions on how a particular hand should have / could have been played. We had a number of responses in comments, and I received a large number of emails regarding the topic as well. I'm going to post my original response to Dave which was sent to him earlier in the week. As usual, I have a bit of a different take on the subject than most people, but I think it is good that we don't all agree. There certainly isn't only one style of play in poker, and by exploring different views we can expand our own thinking process. Here is what I wrote to Dave:

I don't totally disagree with how you played the hand - you had a high pocket pair and reason to believe he may be bluffing, but personally I would have played it different.

I have a few rules for myself. One is - (unless I'm very shortstacked) I will never CALL an all-in raise from someone else that will cause me to be (virtually) all-in unless I am absolutely sure I have the best hand - and I wouldn't feel that with JJ. I would, however, raise all-in myself with JJ, depending on position and other factors.

You need to be the one that is in control of the situation, not a caller to someone else's controlled situation. Fact is - it doesn't matter what he held. By raising all-in he was representing AA, KK, QQ, or AK - none of which you could (at least initially) beat except possibly the AK. The fact that he was a loose player doesn't matter in this situation - even loose players get good cards sometimes. With as many chips left as you had, I know that you would have been able to find better cards, or at least better position.
        
If someone were to say that going all in with Q-8, even suited, was not a good play on the villian's part, I would have to somewhat disagree. Let me clarify though - the reason I dont necessarily agree is because we simply dont have enough information about the table, players, and chip stacks to make that call. The actual cards semi-suck, yes, and he was in early position which is dangerous....but what we dont know is if he had reason to believe he could bully the table at that stage of the tournament, or how many chips the other players at the table had in comparision, or how tight/weak everyone was, etc. If he felt that he could simply bully the (rather significant) blinds, then it wasn't as terrible a play as may appear on the surface. Calling all-in with Q-8 suited would be a much worse play, but taking the lead and betting with it isnt quite as bad if you know all the other factors in play.
       
That all said though, I would never make the play the villian did, personally.

What it all comes down to is this: every single time I play a tournament, I ask myself if making a particular call/play is worth risking my tournament life over. The answer is almost always no. In this case, my answer would have been a definitive NO - especially since the blinds just passed and you would have prime postion for doing some bullying of your own. 

Just my opinion though!

Thanks to everyone for stating their thoughts on this subject. If anyone has another hand that they would like opinions on, feel free to email me via this link.