Hoping for Coin Flips

[FGators]

Coming from a 2-3 year cash game background I never had a problem with "coinflips" because in the past if the raise was cheap, and the money was relatively deep, I'd take a flop and hope to hit a set or make a read on an opponent if I felt he had overcards based on his flop or preflop betting or image.

As I've adjusted to tournaments I am having a ridiculously hard time dealing with what I should do with pocket pairs two through eight. It seems I'm always "hoping" for a coinflip situation. Then I know I'm a slight favorite in the hand and can leave it up to the five cards to come out and award a winner in the hand.

There are certain situations that are easy, when you are a large stack you can call and if you take a slight hit you will have enough chips to continue. If your M is under 5 any pair is good enough to take a stand with.

But what about situations where you are bordering around chip average and a guy who is half chip average pushes in front of you? Sometimes, if you are not in the blinds you have to worry about a guy behind you picking up a better hand than your pair.

Odds of being dealt a pair are about 5%. So if you have a pair and the all in only takes about half your stack should you gamble that it is a coinflip, because usually it is? Do you guys use a borderline hand, like sevens or sixes to make these calls?

Little example:
$22 Multi Table Tournament on PokerStars
UTG folds, UTG+1 pushes all in for 7050, all folds.
Hero is in BB with 55 (12450).

If my read on the UTG+1 is that he is a very aggressive player, raising a lot of pots and pushing in situations like this when he is desperate it is a much easier call, because I'm likely ahead.

However, if I have just been moved to the table, or if the opponent is relatively tight, at what point do I muck this hand?

Obviously we all know to win poker tournaments, especially online poker tournaments, which do NOT have the great tournament structure of a Bellagio or World Series of Poker Event you need to accumulate a boatload of chips.

One way is winning coinflips, which comes with the territory of winning No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournaments.

However, what I seem to be doing in this case is "hoping" for a coinflip." When I use my time bank and eventually hit call with two sevens I pray to see an AK, AQ, KQ, QJ, or whatever hand these people decided to make a stand with.

After all, when I'm not a huge stack I need to make moves on my own to stay into the tournament. But when I'm around tournament average and a guy pushed his chips in in front of me for a little over half my stack and I've got a measly pair of fours or threes that could be drawing to two outs or even counterfeited on types of flops like 885 what am I to do?

Does anybody have any tips here? Mucking is the safer play, but in order to win tournaments mucking is never the best option.

I'm sure this post was all over the map, because I'm thoroughly confused and always sweating these type of situations. I feel like a donkey when I eventually call with pocket fives and see my opponent has pocket jacks. Then I'm drawing to two outs and the potential for my tournament is over because I've just lost about half my stack.

Hopefully someone can enlighten me a little and ease my problem.

Thanks.