When to call without the best hand

Being a nit, I have always believed it is never wrong to fold a hand when I believe my opponent is holding a stronger hand. This is common sense, right? Only donkeys make calls like that, right? Well it's not so simple. The instances are not very common, but sometimes you should make the call even when you are certain your opponent is holding better cards than yours.

I was two hours into a live $50 buy-in tournament. We had started with 5,000 in chips and blinds of 25/25, but the blinds were now 800/1600 and many smaller stacks were in danger of being blinded off. I had a stack of about 25,000, which was the most at my table, (there were two other tables going as well) and so when it folded to me in middle position I thought it was worthwhile to take a stab at stealing the blinds. I had a tight image and my monster stack made it unlikely that anyone would wish to tangle with me. Holding KQ off seemed good enough, so I raised it to an even 4,000. Everyone folded except the big blind, who pushed all-in for a total of 4,500. Now I knew that this guy would not be making this move with anything weaker that what I had, but it would have been wrong to fold. The pot was now 9,300 and it would only cost me another 500 to call, giving me 18-1 pot odds. I knew the odds of winning the pot were slim, but the cost was so relatively cheap and the reward so relatively great that calling was the right thing to do. My decision was even more clear-cut because my opponent, being all-in, could not force me to put any more chips into the pot and the fact that everyone else had folded meant that no third person could muddy the waters. My big stack also meant that the loss of an additional 500 was not going to cripple me. So I called. As I expected, he had a better hand than mine; AK. His hand held up and he won.

Did the fact that I lost mean that I made a bad decision? No. I don't think I made a bad decision to call and I don't think I made a bad decision to attempt the steal in the first place- I think in a majority of cases my steal attempt would have worked, I just was unlucky that one of the four players after me had Big Slick. And I think that against the range of hands a short-stack will bet his tournament life on, KQ will suck-out enough times to be profitable at 18-1 pot odds.

Better players than me are very good at knowing when it is okay to call when behind. The example I gave here is pretty clear-cut, but knowing when such calls make sense is one of the things I need to understand better if I am going to be a better player.