5-5 in the small blind against donkish-LAG, good spot to Stop-n-Go?

[jb9]

Given your read and stack size, I think this OK.

If you fold, you are going to have to get all in in the next orbit anyway, and you might not see a better hand.

I would have pushed preflop even if I thought UTG wouldn't fold in order to get the big blind to fold and avoid having the flop hit him.

I decided not to push because if UTG had something like K-8, a weak holding but not a bad one against 5-5, I did not want him to see all 5 cards. By delaying the push until the flop I wanted to at least give him some chance to fold. Even though pushing pre-flop guaranteed doubling up if I did win, I thought winning the pot outright was more important, as the pot was already a big portion of my stack. If my pair was larger, say 8-8, I would push very quickly pre-flop against UTG, but with 5-5, I thought there were too few hands that I dominated.