Absouletly.
This is often a valid strategy to boot.
By re-raising a lesser all-in, you can limit the field to possibly playing only against the short stack that pushed all-in, AND you can create a situation where your cards can win chips with the 2nd best hand.
Example: (gonna keep it simple)
Short stack
(A) is first to act and goes all-in for $1000 with:
Next to act
(B) goes all-in for $5000 with:
As it stands right now, if no one else calls,
(B) takes back $4000 from his bet, the cards are flipped and play resumes to determine a winner for the $2000 + blinds pot. Player
(B) by going all-in for more than player
(A) could bet, effectivly folded all the other players out, to limit the play to being
only heads up between him/her and player
(A). _____________________________________________ However if player
(C) also calls the $5000 all-in with:
There are now two pots created:
One of main pot of $3000+ blinds that players
(A, B and C) all qualify for, and a side pot of $8000, that only players
(B) and
(C) qualify for.
Play resumes, and say the board comes up:
In this scenario, player
(A) would win the "main pot" of $3000+ blinds since his pair of Jacks held up as the best hand.
Player
(B) would win the "side pot" of $8000 as the pair of 10's the second best hand, and the extra money in the side pot player
(A) did not qualify for since he/she could not cover the extra bets.
However if Player (B) or (C) had ended up with the best hand after playing it out, they can win BOTH pots, since they were able to cover all bets present.
Hope that helps a bit.
