Not Raising Pre Flop with KK against Calling Stations Early MTT

[Bogeysave]

Returned earlier this week from the Gulf Coast Poker Championship and played in all of the preliminary events. It became more and more clear to me as the week went on that you just are not going to get people off of hands in these live MTT's at the early stages. Then this hand comes up.

Level 2 starting chips were $2,000 and blinds are at 25/50. Average is maybe up to $2,200 at our table. I have $1,975 and am on the button.

UTG+1 raises 6X to $300 with $1,475 behind. Cutoff Calls with $975 behind. On the button i stare down at KK. Now if i raise here i am thinking i am committing not only myself to the pot but also both of the other players. I know that at least one of them has to have an ace. Its too early to determine if either of these two are true calling stations but i find at this stage of a live MTT there are lots of them. So i decided to take a look at the flop and if an Ace doesn't come on the flop push at that point.....if an Ace does come i can get out. I smooth call.

Big blind now wakes up and pops it to $1,300 - he has us all covered. Oh boy he must have aces! So now the original raiser goes in the tank and i'm pretty sure he has AK or maybe JJ, 1010, QQ in that range. He finally calls leaving $475 behind. cutoff immediately commits rest of his chips a quarter short of the raise. Now i know at least someone out there has an Ace and its possible that the BB has two of them or that the original raiser was putting on a show and has two of them but i discount that as he didn't just put the rest in.

If i make this call i have another $675 behind to play with and fight back with should an ace hit the flop. So again i decide to not re-pop with my last $675.

Flop comes 772 Rainbow. BB is first to act and bets enough to push original raiser and myself in. Original raiser tanks again and after about 3 minutes mucks. I instacalled telling BB his Aces were good. He flips QQ. Cutoff flips A5 off. original raiser says he had AK. My KK holds to take a monster pot at this stage of the tournament.

My thought in hindsite is that i think i played this hand correctly given the dynamics. The BB re-raise with QQ and the other two stations making that call add to my thought process that at this stage i am not going to get the other two off of a hand. I would rather play post flop than pre-flop especially when on the button. So i think i did well but of course my poker feedback buddies are giving me the raise with KK everytime speech. (interestingly enough one of them re-popped a short while later with KK and a gal called him with AJ - ace on flop).

What do you think of my play in this hand and the overall strategy of small pots even with big hands early in a live MTT?

Thanks in advance for the feedback.