No Limit tourney with A Q of diamonds

[soxfan70]

In a 200 player no limit tourney that was down to 30 players, I was either the chip leader or 2nd in chips at my table; the guy that was close to me in chips was directly to my right, and was UTG, and had already folded. I go all in with AQ of diamonds, and get called by the guy 2 seats to my left. everyone else folds, he flips up pocket 7's, and ultimately won the hand. My question is, with the tourney down to 30 players, and the top 18 getting paid, should I have played tighter and folded, just called and then folded if the 7's went all in? I lost about 60% of my chips there and was eliminated shortly thereafter.

[cferejohn]

You give no indication of your stack size. If you were 2nd or 3rd in chips surely there must have been an option other than calling or going all-in. Had you been going all-in alot? If so, someone may have decided "he's going in with any pair and most aces. I'm going to call him with 77 or better"). With this hand, in this situation, I raise 3-4x the big blind and probably muck to an all-in reraise (though that depends on the stack size of the raiser, as well as my read on him).