Agree and Agree ... to the letter of 'the law' for poker ..

Each player has to decide what his limits are even when faced with +EV situations. If a player will be adversely effected based on the number of BB involved in the hand, then they should be aware of that. How fast can they replace the lost BB? Should a rec 1-2 player put in $300 or $600 or $1200 into this situation? It's all the same math, but ... you know there's a but here for most rec players working with limited bankrolls.

I'm not focusing so much on the $40 itself, but the UTG min-raise from the 'dealer' as a situation that can (should) be recognized as one that needs more 'attention' PF IMO, especially when OOP. Not that we can expect the domino calling effect every hand, but a raise of $42+ is 'way' different than one of only $32 in this spot IMO.

I know that winning chips is way better than winning pots, but every player has a threshold within their game where the emotion takes a bigger grip than the math/therory. GL

$40 pre is fine and the hand is played right. I'm amazed the QQ didn't re-pop it to a straddle's raise! That would never happen in my game.

Straddling 125bb deep is bad.

There are different reasons for straddling. I never do it unless the table is doing it and I want to keep everyone happy. My husband does it to keep up a LAG/crazy image (although they never seem to realize that he's tightened up). I'm sure OP has his reasons.

I'm yet to sit at a 1/2 game where halving my already shallow stack oop is less of a consideration than "keeping the table happy" or giving off a "crazy image"

I'm sure he does have his reasons and I'm pretty sure those reasons are flawed

Stopped reading at this.

Thread was ended right here imo.

If we can get 1/6 of our stack in pre flop with AA life is good. Anything after that is just details.