[ilya]

Your $5 opponents *do* adjust, just not as much as they should. Many will fold a hand like A8s or 55 here even though they would call in another situation, thanks to a partial understanding of the payout structure implications. Remember when you first understood that some situations on the bubble make it correct for you to fold AK to a push? didn't it feel weird & counterintuitive?

You shouldn't assume that your opponents are playing perfectly, but I also think you shouldn't assume that they are clueless psychos. If you assume that, you might end up folding too many hands in a spot like this. Instead, I think it's best to make an educated guess about the extent to which your opponents understand the situation, derive likely calling ranges from that guess, and push accordingly. In this spot, you might guess that your opponents will call with something like 77+, AJs+, AQo+. That still lets you push a fair number of hands.