In too deep with A-rag?

[dfscott]

I hadn't been stealing much to this point due to crappy hands in steal position. Two questions:

1) Is this hand even worth stealing with?
2) How do I react to his weird "almost all-in" bet? If I understand the "2:1 rule" correctly, I have to call this with any kind of a hand, right?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (7 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

UTG (t750)
MP1 (t790)
MP2 (t1470)
CO (t835)
<font color="#C00000">Hero (t2230)</font>
<font color="#C00000">SB (t1050)</font>
BB (t875)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 3/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif.
<font color="#666666">4 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t500</font>, SB calls t400, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>.

Flop: (t1200) J/images/graemlins/club.gif, 2/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 3/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">SB bets t500</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises t1730 (all-in)</font>, SB calls t50 (All-in).

[SoCalPat]

This is a horrible hand and time to be stealing with. If your opponent had a shorter stack and there were fewer than 7 players, you could make an argument. Ditto if your hand was stronger. But in SNGs, you're an eternity from getting ITM, and you're stack simply isn't that big to start playing bully with it now with such marginal holdings.

I'd feel a lot better about losing half my stack with AQo or 88 here than I would A3o. You simply don't have enough of an edge here to be forcing the issue this kind of hand.