($55) Awkward spot with JJ preflop

[Irieguy]

I enjoyed reading how Curtains and Tigerite approached this hand as a math problem.

Unfortunately, I could play a $55 right now; push in that spot, get called from behind with 55, and have UTG call with A-9s and it wouldn't be an atypical $55.

Curtains is probably right with the logic that if you give UTG a tight range and have everybody behind you play perfectly then a push is correct in real life if it's correct under those circumstances. But I don't imagine it surprised him to find out that this would make it -EV compared to folding.

Once you allow players behind you to call with underpairs (which they absolutely will), and you put UTG on a realistically loose min-raising and calling range (which you can), a push with your chip stack in level 3 is clearly correct.

It might be close in a mini-step 5, but i'd say that even in a weekend or holiday $215 this is more than a marginally correct push. In a $55 a push is going to be significantly +EV.

Thank you all for an interesting thread, and thank you Tigerite for crunching the numbers needed to give us a launch point.

Irieguy