Quote:
Originally Posted by TakenItEasy
I'd agree that a straddle could be easily profitable in a three handed game if the other's don't straddle. You gain position pre-flop instead of being first to act if you don't straddle.
While you're playing random, you are only facing 2 random hands as well so despite the fact that your hand will only be the best 33% of the time, you will still won't be that far behind most of the time with mostly 60/40 match-ups and your position edge both pre-flop and post flop should be able to overcome that against equally skilled players. To put it another way, since you'd probably be raising extremely wide regardless, the extra money you invest for playing garbage is fairly diluted and worth the investment for getting that positional edge.
However, Vs decent players, they would just do the same so your edge will wash out and you just end up more than doubling the stakes by playing a 3 blind game. i.e. playing $1/$2/$4 instead of playing $1/$2
In a full ring game, the advantage is not as apparent. You will be facing the best of 9 opposing hands, the average of which will be a top 11% hand. More than that, you will be facing premium hands where you are dominated a much much higher percentage of the time than when just facing the blinds.
The thing I don't like about this straddle, which should never be legal IMO, is that it puts the blinds in an extremely unfair position. For example if only one player is straddling the button and the blinds are required to act first instead of last, than that's clearly a huge disadvantage for them. It's probably better to sit out on your blinds every time and post behind with a dead small blind.
The thing is that the equity lost from those blinds don't go to the button exclusively. It gets distributed to everyone at the table since every player not only picks up 2 positions pre-flop but they do so on players who already have money posted. This means that they will usually be playing vs undefended blinds. Another words all players would be playing with your dead money on your blinds but, in this case, you wouldn't be able to recoup that lost edge, since straddling yourself doesn't really benefit you, just the other players who are not in the blinds.
If you end up needing to fold around 90% from the BB, just as a wild guess, you can see how huge this disadvantage really is since you'd be loosing at a rate of around 90 bb/100 hands when playing from the bb.
It's basically a scam used by casino's to drive advantage players out of the game, especially when it's a high stakes game where no seat change/table change options are available.
I completely agree with your analysis.
I've never played with a mississipi straddle but how the hell can the button have the right to decide? It's the blinds who lose the best positions pf and get nothing in return, they should have to decide.
