This is a good question. I think a lot of times players in these situations fail to take into account the table dynamics and get sucked into a hand like a medium pair or AQ or even QQ.

The thing that's missing here is: What are the blinds right now? This makes a big difference in how I'm going to answer the question. Also, how many chips do the SB and CL have? And what's your table image?

Where has your money been coming from? Mostly steals, mostly won hands (and how did you win them? - PF confrontations?)?

An important question to ask ourselves any time we make an action is "why am I _________?".

So we have QQ on the button, an M of just under 9. We have 3K already in the blinds, and it's now 5K to call a pot of 27,000.

With the UTG+2 and SB effectively all in, why are we trying to raise? Let's look at the different scenarios:

1. We raise all in (the only raise that makes sense).
A. The CL folds, and we're now heads up against 2 other hands that are all in. If we win, we now have 64,000 in chips, and our real money equity increases quite a bit as we knock out 2 other players.
B. The CL calls, and we're now heads up against 3 other hands that are all in (including that we're in for our lives). If we win, we now have 104,000 in chips, and our real money equity skyrockets as we knock out 2 players and become the overwhelming CL.
C. The CL calls, we're heads up against 3 all in hands, and we lose but the other 2 players lose as well. We're out ahead of the other 2 stacks and we make some more $ because of that.
D. The CL calls, we're heads up against 3 all in hands, and we lose, and one of the small stacks survives. Ouch. We've just lost equity here, because we surely could have survived longer than both of these short stacks if we had just called or folded.

2. We flat call, getting 5:1 on our money.
A. The flop comes all undercards or we hit our set. We can now safely value bet a smaller amount - this basically tells the CL that "I've got a hand that beats you right now, do you really want to stick around and try to catch a card on me?", or we can try and trap him if the flop comes with a Q and an A or K.
B. The flop comes all undercards. We decide to just make sure we bust the other players and check it down with the CL. If he bets, we carefully consider if he is just an idiot or if that means he's got AA or KK or something like AJ (if it comes J high).
C. The flop comes with at least one overcard. We check, trying to act like we're checking it down, and see what the CL does. If he bets, we fold. Otherwise we check the hand down.

I think on balance, just flat calling is the play to make here. We have to see the flop anyways, so we might as well see it cheaply. If the flop is friendly, we have a lot of options here. If it's unfriendly, we have left ourselves an out.

Not to mention that as far as real $ goes, our best play is to try and eliminate the smaller stacks without risking elimination ourselves.

Well, as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm weak-tight in tournaments, but with one AI and 2 callers, I'm folding this. At this point, let the others fight it out. There maybe a chance I have the best hand right now (likely) but will it still be best at the end of the hand.

While the SS AI could be a huge range of hands, the other 2 callers have stated I have a hand that is decent...I'm willing to gamble. Since we're so close to some serious money, you've got a read on the table that you can steal (and resteal) to keep your stack decent, I'm waiting while they fight it out...

I also think that if there are no other callers to the AI, I'm calling. If there is a single caller then I'm probably calling...with 2 or more callers (even to a SS AI) I'm usually folding unless I'm sitting on AA or I have a huge CL and I can afford to gamble...