I haven't dropped it, the only part of it i don't like is when you cold 4 shove AA and everyone snap folds, QTs doesn't come up often but KQo and AA do come up fairly often, live low stakes players tend to fold too much so if you block the K then it's a good play at 2/5, that's why i would rather have the QTs than the 66

This is just straight up math. It can't really be argued with. A lot of the 5/10 players who know what the hell they are doing will cold 4 shove KQo. You see this type of play a lot more online and at higher stakes but if you want to make money you should definitely study the math of this spot imho

The real question is how rolled are you for $2/$5/$50. Sure, at the moment effective stack sizes are lol small but that doesn't change the fact that this could potentially play very big and you should take that into account when making all your decisions, including the decision to play in this game at all.

It's not $2/$5/$50. We're only paying $7 in blinds an orbit. Edge is also a factor when considering if one is rolled for a game, not just variance. Our edge is far greater than a normal game. An underrolled player should be jumping into this game just as quickly as an adequately rolled one.

You're right it should affect our decision making process, other than whether to sit down at all.

Good point regarding the blinds but you do need to be ok with losing much more in this sort of game than you have a chance of losing in a typical 2/5 game. Underrolled players shouldn't be jumping in any game they aren't rolled for (aside from a well thought out shot take) regardless of edge. The bankroll serves a valuable purpose. If you are a rec player that doesn't mind losing your bankroll then jump in whatever game you want. (OP is a poker pro with a low net worth and a gambling addiction)

Of course if this is just a one-off hand where he happens to blind raise to $50 then no big deal.

Wow I'm surprised how nitty everyone is... my ranges are way looser.

I would normally jam something like {66+, ATo+, KJo+, all suited Aces, all suited broadways} in UTG+1 here.

In late position (CO through to SB) I am probably jamming more than 50% of hands... I'd jam something like {22+, Q8o+, K5o+, A2o+, 54s+, 75s+}.

Maybe I am jamming way too light here? I find that people aren't usually cold calling in the middle without premiums like {TT+, AQ+}, so it's normally just me vs the maniac. Although sometimes an old man wakes up with QQ and I usually get it in with like 30% equity.

And I normally raise small like $120 with my KK+, but jam with everything else. Is that too exploitable?

My assertion is that the edge of this game is so high (assuming this action is regular) that it is a better decision to sit in this game than a regular 2|5 game for any bankroll size. Whether or not OP should be sitting down in any 2|5 game is another matter.

Even if you only had one buy-in would you really rather play in a normal 2|5 game? Your chance of going busto long term is likely far greater in a normal game.

If you're at a 9 handed table, the probability that at least one other player has { TT+, AQ } is like 1 in 3.

Not if you would normally jam something like {66+, ATo+, KJo+, all suited Aces, all suited broadways} in UTG+1 here.

I can't recall a particular instance of someone raising $50 every single hand blind but I do recall an instance of a player shoving all in blind every hand for a couple hours. If a player is shoving all in blind every hand it's going to be higher EV than any other 2/5 table. However, the game is also playing much bigger than a 5/T so just because it's +EV doesn't mean you should play it particularly if you are going to try to play optimally (which is very high variance) and if other players are going to be playing optimally too (which will only further increase the variance).

This is actually a big factor, it's not a 25/50 game, it's 7/50, so that will skew the math a lot making QTs a fold in this example.

The bankroll thing is another matter. Basically you need around 25,000 to play 2/5, so the risk of ruin is a thing if you aren't rolled. Might be better to just min raise QTs, in fact in might be ok to raise to 100 with any hand you are playing to isolate the random hand if you are playing a short BR, you never really get flatted at 2/5, it's actually -ev for anyone to flat vs your stack anyway, and you will have perfect odds to call it off vs a shove

I already agreed with you that bankroll should be a factor in playing decisions. You're misrepresenting my argument. I am NOT saying that someone should play "optimal" strategy on a short roll. Also, you have to consider that you can't play "optimally" in the regular game either. In a regular game if you follow something like the Kelly Criterion on an extremely short roll you're likely to be inhibited to the point where you can't play a +EV game at all.

The problem using the kelly criterion is that you can't scale your bankroll to the changes continuously, especially in poker, that's kind of why it's called a "criterion". But in reality you only really need 10BI's or $5,000 to play for stacks and the risks of ruin is low enough that it is still +ev but if you lose you can't drop down to $2.25/$4.50. If you have 12 BI's it's actually enough to shove for value and the risk of ruin is not a factor, it's only our brains saying we don't have enough to shove

if you want variance free poker $25K is more than enough and you will probably never bust, but you will not bust enough playing on 12 that you should not shove some marginal hands for fat value