online 50 dollar buy in.

start with 50K, I start the hand with 37K. antes total 3k, blinds are 1500 and 3k, and I am BB with queen ten off suit.

all folds to LB, who is is very good player and easily has me covered, and has a steal percent of 35% (about typical for a good player), and he makes it 9k, so there is now 15K in the pot.

what is your play?

What position is "LB" in? Any ICM implications?

If LB is in the small blind, then I think you want to shove a lot, and call a range with some traps (high pocket pairs maybe like 99+). I think I would call QTo.

LB was probably top 20 at the time with about 200K, and in the money (had tourny ended there), though we were probably 100 places from the money so I did not mention his stack. that said, I called, he had AJ and I was out. this seemingly boring hand with just a battle of blinds, though got me to thinking about fold equity vs. position. I think both fold equity and position are, in this case diminished. the fold equity is because he is calling with things like K7 if I shove, but the argument to just call because of position is tough because in a battle of blinds, he is going to fire quite a bit with any flop, and at least 2 of 3 times I probably have to fold the flop. Thank you for response

If stacked at 37bb, how does calling a 9bb raise cause you to be "out"?

If there was some action on the flop, can we see that too?

So you are BB and you started the hand with 37k, you have about 34k back and you are facing a raise of 6k. Villain has 200k back, and you are about 100 players away from the bubble. Have I got all that right?

Honestly I don't think you will get a lot of mileage flatting against Buddy Bigstack with Q/10o and 12 bb's back. With a hand like Q/10o you can easily hit the flop hard and still be behind.

I think you are very close to a push or fold position pre-flop.

Since you have 12 BB's you can wait at least another orbit or two before you have to make a desperation play. You may have to go with ATC soon enough but you are not there yet. There is a lot to be said for giving it up now and hoping for a better hand to come over the top with.

If you push now and he calls, your Q/10o is usually flipping although you will occasionally be dominated. If I were in Buddy Bigstack's position, heads up with 200k behind, I would call with pretty much anything I would have raised with.

You are a long way from the money, so taking a flip for your stack here and now is probably not the worst move you can make. But I think flatting here might be a leak.

oops, I mistyped. I moved all in.. he called, and I was out. thank you for correction.

I agree.. I did not want to cold call for abou 20% of my stack. I do believe this was a case where all three options (fold, call, shove) were viable. of course, I kick myself for any move that ends up like this :-) I appreciate all feedback. the fact that the comments seem to seem to suggest that this decision could reasonably go one of several ways makes me feel that if I did play suboptimally, it was not by much.

[QUOTE=2pairsof2s;57897049]So you are BB and you started the hand with 37k, you have about 34k back and you are facing a raise of 6k. Villain has 200k back, and you are about 100 players away from the bubble. Have I got all that right?

yes, that is correct

You probably need him to fold a lot for 3b ship to beat out flatting, but a lot of people will fold with astonishingly high frequency when you ship it.

I don't see a clear winner and I think either option is completely justifiable and unfalsifiable. Anything but folding which I think is totally unjustifiable.

Why is folding unjustifiable? I think flatting raises for 20% of your chips against guys with who have dominant stacks while holding unpaired, unsuited, unconnected cards is unjustifiable.

With two unpaired, unconnected cards, you will hit the flop less than 1 time out of three. Therefore, when Villain makes his inevitable C-bet, you will be compelled to fold about two out of three times that you flat the raise. And even if you do hit the flop with your Q/10o you will still be behind a significant amount of the time. (Obviously you can come over the top regardless whether you hit or miss the board, but personally I don't like to make a habit of bluff-raising guys who have dominant stacks.)

My feeling is that in this spot, OP doesn't have enough chips to be flatting raises worth 20% of his stack with cards as weak as Q/10 off. It's a leak.

Unlike ship or flat, I actually think the claim that's it's OK to fold IS falsifiable

But I won't show you what I'm basing that opinion on

You claim that flatting is an unfalsifiable play. But you won't say why and you won't refute my reasoning behind claiming that flatting is a leak. And you say that folding is falsifiable but smugly decline to explain why. Yet the logic behind your claims is not ineffable. I think you should explain it.

What I am saying is put up or shut up.

Here is a statement that I think is unfalsifiable: you should not flat raises for 20% of your chips with unpaired, unsuited, unconnected cards in your hand if doing so leaves you with less than 9 bb's in your stack. You should push or fold.

I understand that this is all theoretical to you but it is different when you play for real money. Then you discover that things like stack preservation actually matter.

I think if you fold QTo then villain just autoprofits massively when they raise (and it's a zero sum game so you know what that means).

If you face some autocbet drone you can just jam a ton against their cbets, and with a strong and fairly connected hand like QTo you will flop things like a pair or straight draw + overcards quite often. And if you care about being balanced you can also call preflop with for example QQ+ at 100% frequency, and villain can't just run you over when you call.

I think QTo play's better postflop than it does in all in pots so that's why I prefer calling. But it all depends on villain. For example if they limped many hands but suddenly raise then fold is best.

Well, I'm not sure whats correct but also not convinced that calling is a leak.

I am not saying you should never flat hands like Q/10o in position. What am saying is when you have very few chips and you are heads up with a guy who has 200k and he has just raised into you, you should not have much of a flatting range at all.

I think people often play more push or fold than they need when they are in position. I agree that you probably want to be shoving a decent amount in this spot, but I also think you can still have a significant calling range.

I don't think it's very relevant if villain has 50k or 200k, except that the more chips villain has the more aggro they are usually, which I guess you can exploit by jamming more than normal.

This inspires me to open more to non-allin sizes shortstacked BvB because the range of opinions shows that people (me included) are pretty clueless XD

Yes, it’s 20% of our stack but with ~35bb you’ve still got a plenty playable stack.

I like the flat and see if you can chip up.

I have a bad habit of not looking for these thin preflop spots that can make a big chip swing mid tournament

OP has 37k at T3000, which is 12bb not ~35.

At this point vs a decent or good reg that's properly mixing their SB range, I think we just reshove and hope to fold out the bottom of their range and have the re-entry button ticked.

That being said, if they are a 50$ MTT okay but not great reg, the closer we get to the money with ICM implications, I don't mind a fold at all.

An okay reg will mix in a little more non-shove smaller or standard size raises with the top of their range hoping to get shoved on, while a well studied reg playing a little higher will add more limps with these same hands also hoping to get shoved on.

So, I think some are underestimating the amount of potential value in their hand, mixed with a lot of bad players will also only raise their better hands still in SB in 50's and don't know or just don't have the juevos or experience to include all of the random small suited disconnected cards they should be freq including.. .

I wouldn't shove here. Our fold equity is just not good against a huge stack. And QTo is a terrible hand to go all in with. We are trailing hands like AXs, most broadways which would call, all pairs, KXs, etc.

I also wouldn't fold here. The "really good player" in the SB has just under-raised significantly. His raise should have been to 13k. So we get good value out of the call. I do hate that if we have to fold then we are down to 9bb's. But on the bright side we have a full round to shove first in with decent fold equity. Also, we hit our hand more than 33% of the time here. We hit pairs about 33% of the time, but there are a bunch of straight draws we can hit as well including gutters with one or two overs. The other problem with calling here is that we have very little chance of bluffing on the flop with fold equity. Still I hate giving up on a hand as good as QTo when we are short stacked and we do have position.