Push or Fold? Short-Stacked With Jack-Five Suited in the Small Blind
DECISION POINT: In a no-limit hold'em tournament, the table folds to you in the small blind where you have become short-stacked and have been dealt J♣5♣. The action is on you.
PRO ANSWER: With a stack of just over 11 big blinds as you have here, you should usually adopt a "push-fold" strategy. In other words, any hand you choose to play will be a preflop all-in. When it folds to you in the small blind or other late position seats, you can adopt a push-fold strategy with 12 big blinds or less.
During push-fold play, most players focus too much on their hand and not enough on the number of players remaining in the hand. In this situation you only have one opponent remaining and can therefore move all in with a very wide hand range.
There is 1,150 in the pot and 5,700 remaining in your stack. If you move all in, you potentially stand to increase your stack size by 20 percent when you win the pot uncontested.
If you were in any other seat besides the small blind, this would be a fold. However, the fact that you only need to get one opponent to fold makes this a profitable all-in.
This makes shoving all in preflop the best play.
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