AK 4 handed

Tough situation came last night. I was playing in a 27 man Sit N Go -- I had been playing pretty well but took a couple of bad beats. I managed to build my stack up to about 6,000 chips when we were down to 4 handed. Chip leader had about 17,000, second had 9,000, I was in third, and 4th place had 1800.

Blinds were 200/400 with a 25 ante-- The chip leader had built his stack by becoming an extremley agressive 3 better -- coming over the top of what are standard weak raises and playing the gap between money wins very well. He has actually played very tight until we got short handed, so he was able to blow me off some pots he probably shouldn't have. To add some more details -- the short stack had just lost 80% of his chips on the previous hand.

I pick up AKo UTG and make my standard raise of 3x BB -- with the blinds so big, and having such a strong hand. 2nd place folds, and I am just begging that the short stack (SB) picks up a weak ace that he feels he will be forced to push. He folds-- and of course the big aggressive stack 3 bets me all in. I wanted to fold. I did. But this is just a terrible fold against htis range. The only justification is playing for 3rd place money. This range at this point is any pair, any broadway, and a lot of much weaker suited aces. AK is a huge equity.

Of course I bring this up because I called - and lost a race to 88 and lost a good bit of money (relative) from 4th place to 3rd. Though the fold is easily the correct play there. If I win the race, I am the chipleader so I put myself in a good position to win the top prize. but more important to this situation is if I fold - I lose my 1200 I put into the pot which brings me down to 4800 -- and im in the blinds next-- bringing me to 4150 after the blinds. and each round is costing me 700 chips - 1/6th of my stack each round. So yes, this is an obvious call, but I just wanted to demonstrate how bad a fold it is. My girlfriend was watching me play, and she was like "Fold Fold Fold" and then when I lost, she said "I told you so"

Real money from touraments come from 1st and second.