Any flat there would be bad because of his stack size. He cannot fully realize equity of a lot of the hands that flat button vs utg, simply because of his stack sizes. Thus he cannot have a reasonably balanced range when he flats there.

If dumb forum dwellers think that "39% equity against utg range" is enough to justify call ip with 18bb with 2 people behind left to act, well screw that, I am not going to argue here.

this is 18% range



good luck opening that utg in any stars reg game starting from 2-5$. You are also comparing Brian Rast to biggest 10/20 winners on Stars, which should end the argument right here.

Your sharkscope graph should end the argument right here

yeh let's use preflop equity vs a range to determine how profitable a flat is, clearly A2o is a better hand to flat than QTs. you're right though, I won't argue anymore either.

From their loose play, it is obvious the short stacks were trying to build a stack or reenter. Perhaps Mercier should have just shoved preflop and given them a chance to gamble.

Couple points

1.He does have a balanced range here - he has QTs! You don't think he would ever flat AA/KK here? Regardless who cares if hes balanced - it would be great if people thought he only has the nuts in this spot and he can work on playing his nut hands in a different way.

2.Showing us QTs equity vs 18% is pointless - you're pulling 18% out of your ass, we have no idea what Rast thinks of Fedors range, and we're not making it to showdown anywhere near 100% of the time

3.If you want to argue QTs is a fold here to a reasonable opening range you can't show us equities you need to show us how often QTs flops well enough to continue in the hand....there's programs out there that will graph this out vs a range and you can figure it out from there, but any other argument is silly.

No one knows what the table dynamic was like, how wide Rast is opening, or what people would think of Fedors flat......you can't just plug random ranges into some calculator and think you have everything solved

MTT players are opening in this position way more than high stakes cash players. If these was a soft field he might open like 35% but it is probably more like 25% because it is a tough field.

lol insanely tilting how everyone keeps saying UTG. rast opened from LJ. maybe in some technical sense that is under the gun, but it's obviously much more useful to say he is lowjack than utg. also i'm positive rast opens more than 20% of his hands in this spot given his stack and antes. pretty sure he's opening any pair, any suited ace, any two broadway cards for starters.

I consider myself to be a nit and I open slightly more than 16% from 6-max UTG post-antes.

fedor obvz felt the flush coming

I don't think you know what you're talking about

What a lovely thread. I love it when mad1lee is being his condescending self as if he is the goat.

I love it when common sense among mtters is measured by the amount of tournaments someone binked.

I also love how simple concepts and spots obvious to cash regs is constantly debated here, like for example calling UTG's raise on the button with 18bb with QTs.

Pretty sure elite mtt'ers have a better grasp of 18bb poker compared to almost every other 'pure' cashgame player. Not going to debate on fedor's play, def 2nd call seems quite the gamble, but whatever, unlimited rebuys ftw. Rast' play however is just terrible.

lol most cash players have no clue (relative to good mtters) about short stack and even less about "non standard" play

I'm not even saying it is a good (or not good) flat just your reasonings aren't strong and you're too confident

here's a fun question. how much do u think flatting qts vs yourself is losing there? (assume the blinds are also you)

"Most cash players" are also professional short stackers who solved 20-40bb play before mtters.

We also have professional turbo/hyper/spin and go sit and go grinders who also solved this before mtters.

All this while "elite" mtter like Brian Rast makes this horrendous and hilarious tank call and "elite" mtter like Mercier makes this telegraphing 3 bet that is always KK-AA. Can't say how "elite" is Fedor, from this video he just degened himself out of 100k$ buy-in live mtt, so maybe he is a mtt god and just had a bad day or maybe he is not elite and has gambling problems, I don't know and don't care.

If your "non standard" play is not good according to GTO software even with locked nodes (i.e. adjusted ranges for every street), it's called "garbage" play.

I am not answering your "fun question", not because I have super secret winning strategy I don't want to reveal (I don't), but because it's a stupid question I would never care to answer. Do you calculate how much is obviously bad play -EV against your range there every time you see one? Well I don't either.

EDIT: Also remembered how an "elite" mtter dpeters made two terrible icm mistakes to bust on the bubble of two high stakes SCOOP mtts last year all while "no clue how to short stack" cash game players like fish2013 crushed it. Couple of mtts, I know, more of an anecdote than a proof of anything.

It's a small raise vs a wide range in position with antes. Did you know that antes increase the pot odds allowing for a wider range of hands to play? Particularly when short stacked without much possibility of future action?

To say "Any flat there would be bad because of his stack size" is ludicrous. You are receiving 2 to 1 odds and have a good hand that flops well and plays well in position. You're also criticizing his shortness when that is something that can actually improve his chances of realizing his equity as well as win pots he shouldn't.

It seems like some people are saying "Dude you have QTs" and others are saying "Duude, you have QTs!"

Dude, you have almost 30k posts here since June 2004. You probably played and discussed some poker in your life. How did you not hear about simple concept bigger spr ip the better? Now do you realise that being in position in order to fully take advantage of the hand that has much less than 50% equity against openers range we need that SPR.

That is without even considering the impossibility of having balanced unexploitable range for that position for 18 bb stack.

That is without even considering ICM.

That is without even considering two players behind still left two act.

Dude, you have QTs

You cant compare 20-40bb cash stacks to mtt because there are no antes, different sizings, and dynamics.

ugh so obnoxious

literally everything in your post isn't true

*except rast playing terrible

but you know, keep acting as arrogant as you do


funny thing is im not even arguing against you that you should or shouldnt flat qts here just your attitude is cringe worthy

Yeah, and also fish2013 is a special kind. He has also played a ton of 6m sngs. It is really ****ing painful to have so much confidence with so much false logic. Statements like the bigger spr the better just make me cringe, bc this isn't always the case. You can't assume that all cgame concepts with 100bb+ apply to every shortstack/middle stack spot.

does the same in other threads too
some guy opens a9s utg in a mtt and he is literally like
"i have piosolver and snowie ranges for 6m 100bb cash game, and neither open it utg, therefore everyone else ITT is an idiot!"

also yes the fish thing is completely irrelevant, sure he is a top player but his result in a 50 player tournament says little to nothing, combined with the fact it literally adds zero value to his argument. even -if- cash players are better at poker and we accept that, it doesn't add to anything he said. people arent saying cash players cant play short (especially all cash players), just that cash and mtt are different games (dif structures/metagame and villains/considerations) so directly comparing one range to another makes no sense

How is ICM relevant? This is the reentry period and he has 18xBB. He is pretty far from a mincash.

QTs plays well postflop and hits a lot of flops. It was obvious he was playing loose looking to reenter and you can't really evaluate a play like this as to whether it is correct in the abstract.

I said that A9s is almost the bottom hand hand for utg ranges in 6max 100bb, it's not out of the range. But there is a huge difference between 6-max 100bb and utg in 8max 25bb against a bunch of bigger stacks that will be always playing in position against your marginal open.

I also said that fish2013 example was more of an anecdote and did not proof much. The way Dpeters bubbled both says a lot about how "elite" mtters know their short stack game.

Bigger spr for in position player is a simple concept, really, if you don't get, I can't help you. If it makes you cringe, I am sorry.

So far arguments for flatting here were basically "we are getting two to one" "we are suited" "our hand flops well". I gave my reasons and logic why it's bad. If you wanna flat utg opens with 18bbs with QTs and plan to make EV on it, do it your way. You can also call a 3b, because now you are getting gazzilion to one and you are still ip!!!