Poker talk

In early July, my parents were in town to visit. Like myself, my father is a bit of a poker player. Although his stakes are higher than mine, I talked him into playing the 11 PM $60 tournament at the Sahara. 110 or so players started the event (WSOP season led to higher fields). I busted out rather undramatically in approximately 40th place. My father, on the other hand, played solid poker and was picking up the right hands at the right time. When his KK nearly doubled up on A-J off at approx 3 AM, he was 2nd or 3rd in chips with about 15 players remaining. He was a shoe-in for the final table. About 20 minutes later with 14 players remaining the following hand took place at his table: Player in 2nd position (very tight) pushes all in. He has the enough chips to put every player in except one...my father. My father has the button and picks up AcKc. After thinking for a few seconds, he calls. The flop: Kd-8s-3c. Turn: 6h. River Jd. Without reading further, did my father make the right call?

I've presented this situation to many of my poker playing friends (many of which are professional poker players). Approximately 80% of them state that my father made the correct play here. Regardless of the buyin (final table only pays out), you have to play to win the tournament. If he wins the hand, he is commanding chip leader and has a dominating chip stack. 1st in the tourney payed around $2400. For a $60 buy-in, that is not bad!

This is where I beg to differ....in a huge way. The player in early position raising all-in with a big stack OBVIOUSLY has a huge hand. You can boil this down to approximately 7 hands. AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AK, or AQ. Any other hands like 99, 88, or AJ suited are very highly unlikely for this opponent. Because he is such a tight player, I found it very unlikely that he held TT or AQ. The most likely outcome is AK, JJ or QQ. Outside chance of KK or AA. With this knowledge, we can proceed as follows:

If my opponent has AQ, I'm a huge favorite....but it's highly unlikely b/c he's that tight.
If my opponent has TT, it's a coin clip...but it's somewhat unlikely he has this b/c he's that tight.
If my opponent has JJ or QQ, it's a coin flip with him slightly favored.....good chance he has this.
If my opponent has AK, it's a push...and I'm slightly favored being suited.
If my opponent has AA or KK, I'm screwed.....bigtime!

This is my take on the hands his opponent likely has. Honestly, I saw the hand and put him on QQ. When my father called, I knew it was a mistake w/o seeing his cards.

What did the opponent have? JJ. Scrolling backward....that was a devastating river card.

My strategy here is to NOT make a likely coin flip for your virtual tournament life. Although it would have been slightly hard being in the moment, the correct play is to laydown AK...pricing in there is a 1 in 4 chance that my opponent picked up KK or AA and I'm screwed. 50% of the time (at least) I'm pricing a coin flip for my virtual tournament life. Why do that? My strategy is to live to play another day.

Maybe I won't be big stack when I reach the final table....but:
A: at least I got there to get paid
B: at least I have I have the chance to outplay or out-luck the remaining field

My father busted out a couple hands later with A7 offsuit trying to make something happen on a short stack. Although he still believes he made the right play (as do much of my poker friends), I play another way. Comments?