seems putting opponents on a range is just speculation.

however if we are playing against 5 opponents and have 55 in any position there's a 20% chance someone has a higher pair. 80% of the time we are going to be ahead. shouldn't we just shove this hand every time no matter what the stacks size, action is?

trying to guess that our opposition has 66-AA is just speculation.

Yeah I think that speculation is big a part of the game, you're right.
You shouldn't shove 55 no matter what beacuse there are a lot of better ways to make money with it.

You're risking 100bb to win 1.5bb. You're going to win the vast majority of the time, but that isn't good enough. One of the other 5 players is going to get dealt AA or KK like 4.5% of the time and stack you.

Of course if you are like in a tourney and only 12bb deep the risk may be worth it

Of course it is.

Since you'll never know with 100% clarity, you have to speculate. The skill lies in how you refine your speculative estimate as the hand progresses.

Without speculation, all you can do is play your cards and hope to have the best hand.

putting people on ranges is speculation [x]
we should be shoving 55 against 5 opponents [ ]


also, where are you getting your numbers re: only 20% chance of someone having a higher pair/80% of the time we are ahead ...?

It seems to me that sort of thinking is far more speculative than trying to put people on hand ranges

Wrong. Poker is a game with a finite number of possible starting hands and every time you get dealt a hand, you already know 2 out of 52 cards.

If UTG raises and you are in UTG+1, you know UTG’s range: he has exactly 1 out of 1225 possible starting hands. That’s not a speculation.

If you want to, you can speculate and try to narrow down opponents ranges, but nobody forces you to.

I don't even understand the logic in the OP, but you're wrong.

55 does indeed have a small equity edge against 5 random hands. The fives have about 18.5% equity and the randoms all have around 16.3%. However, there are some problems. The edge is small, the hands aren't random and some of the hands might fold.

If some hands fold, there isn't much gained by taking that risk with a small edge. In fact, if this is a tournament and players are trying to "ladder up" into the money, you might get several folds to a shove.

It is rare that a "random hand" will really be random. If you're played against that player for more than a few orbits, you might have some sort of player or situational read based on things like stack sizes, relative positions, who likes to call or who likes shove-or-fold, etc. Stack sizes and other table conditions might figure into those calculations.

If you're very shortstacked in a tournament and you have any kind of edge, or course you should absolutely shove with any pair.

That's what the skill in poker is.

Choose how you play:

What does the Villain have?

[ ] D G A F
[ ] any two cards
[ ] wild ass guess
[ ] something good
[ ] a range that is based on Villain's age, ethnicity, and/or sobriety
[ ] a range about what other Villain's seem to have a lot of the time
[ ] a range that is based on what we have seen that particular Villain do before
[ ] a range that is based on what the other Villain's seem to have done before
[ ] a range from a table of starting hands we saw somewhere
[ ] a range based on actually reading some of the posts on 2+2
[ ] a range based on actually reading some of the posts in the no limit forum
[ ] a range based on actually paying attention to common Villain ranges last time Hero played
[ ] a range based on actually thinking about the particular situation at the moment
[ ] a range based on trying to develop a mental "big picture" about the game
[ ] a range based on ever so slightly developed experience and observation
[ ] a range based on experience and observation, subject to change with more experience
[ ] a range based on somewhat informed judgment after evaluating posts in the No Limit forum
[ ] a range based on enough experience to tell which posters are worth listening to
[ ] a range based on enough experience that OP has a chance to be a winning player
[ ] a range based on informed judgment
[ ] a range based on informed judgment and position
[ ] a range based on informed judgment, position and stack sizes
[ ] ... and so on

OP has checked the first box.

Picking a stock is just speculation-you don't know how it is going to perform in the future

Placing a sports bet is just speculation-past performance does not guarantee that teams will play a certain way

Driving to work is just speculation-There are so many random factors and bad drivers, you are just guessing that you will get there safety

Just about everything we do in life is speculative in one way or another, yet some people are able to integrate all known facts and consistently anticipate the future much more reliably than others. Thus it is with poker. Placing a player on a range is speculation, but it is guided by logic and observation.

As far as your notion that you should shove every hand with five five, this is wrong for several reasons. You are assuming they will call their entire range, and not just the premium hands. You are assuming that I can't narrow their range by observation of their behavior. And you are assuming that stealing blinds is the best value I can get with a pocket pair.