 or not
If this was a ring game or a one hand tournament then I'd say call him down. But let's go back to your scenario and compare gain versus loss....
200 people (rounding) at 1500 starting chips each (guessing) gives us 300,000 chips in play. I don't know what the pay structure is so let's just use a final table count of 9 people...
300,000/9=33,300 chips each. Realistically everyone will not hit the final table with even stacks but lets assume that's a good amount of chips to shoot for final tabling with.
So if you win you double up to 11,450 chips, about 1/3 of what we determined would get you to the final table with hopes of doing anything. If you lose, your tourney is over, period, hit the showers.
You said the bubble was far away so you still have time to make more moves, hopefully moves where you are more confident that you will win.
So winning this hand did not ensure a tournament win by any means but losing it means you're definitely finished. And you had no information with 5 cards to come and it was still early in the tournament. Call me crazy but it sounds kinda sketchy to me, and believe me, I play every hand to win.
You also said you made a 3xBB raise which is spoken of as being a standard raise. That depends on people's stack sizes, the table speed, etc. Betting 900, were you inducing a call/raise? If you were just taking the blinds I'd say you should have bet more. If you wanted action, you got it! If he didn't have bullets or big slick then you took a bad beat which happens.
I'd say the key to your success is at the bottom of your post. You've started recognizing a hole in your game and are figuring out what changes will fix it. You said should you stay away from all in situations unless short stacked? I'd say stay away from them period until you've got your fish on the hook and are praying that he pushes all in.
peace all | 
