Call a third of your stack with rags?

[DesertCat]

Playing live tonight in the Casino AZ NL tournament. After being short stacked until the break, my unbeatable 78o cracked queens to double me up and give me breathing room. Then came this hand...

300/600 blinds, I had 2600 chips after posting the small blind. The big blind was serving a ten minute penalty, and I was eyeing his defenseless chips. All fold to cutoff (the owner of the unfortunate queens). She goes all in for 1100. Button folds.

I've got J7o. The pot is now 2000, and it's 800 to call. I think I've got pot odds against over cards. In my head it appeared if I had 30% or better I'd have positive EV. But I'd be left with 3x the big blind, the call is almost a third of my stack. I tell her she's got me beat, and her reply is "I doubt it", so I know she's got a monster. What should I do?

[LethalRose]

With only 1100 she would be going all in with almost anything hoping you will fold. Id call.

[DesertCat]

She had AK, ace on flop, king on turn. So I was about 34%, so it looked like it turned into a good call. But when I ran a few scenarios through twodimes, I was surprised at how big a dog I could have been if she had a big or medium pair. I was 14% on QQ-AA, and 8% on JJ. Only 28-29% on 88-TT, and 30% on 77. Obviously it was more likely that she had unmatched cards, probably Ax, Kx, where I ranged from 34% up, so I think I had positive EV on the decision when considered in a microcosm.

But, thinking past this hand, I busted out when I made it back around to the big blind. She was back down to 1900 chips and raised to 1200 again. This time, the small blind was steaming from losing half his chips in the previous hand and immediately went all in for 4k or so. I had KK, and tossed in my remaining 1200 chips on top of my 600 blind. She thought for a second, then called all-in. She had TT, SB had A8s, but she spiked a set on the flop and I was out by only 100 chips.

If I hadn't called her previous all-in. I would have probably outchipped her by 1500 chips, and would have earned that from the small blind, so instead of being out I actually would have grown my stack to 3k.

So that's why I was questioning why on the previous hand I gambled such a big part of my stack on long odds? So far I still think it was the right one. I put a third of my stack in with the opportunity to more than triple it and (I think) the pot odds to justify it. I was also patient enough that I later got the opportunity to put all my stack in with a 54% chance to triple up. Neither opporunity worked out this time, but if the same circumstances happened again I'd likely be in very good shape.