im going to go with G's advice. Thanks

If you're afraid of variance to the point where you avoid +EV plays, you probably are playing too high. If you're playing 1/2 and afraid of variance...good luck. I get that the spr is cut lower. But you basically get to turn a 1/2 game into a 2/5 game with 1/2 players and a 2/5 game into a 5/10 game with 2/5 players when you have position and when people aren't adjusting properly and continue limping a stupid wide range. Surely it's way better than just playing the BTN normally?

Still feel the way I did two years ago. Why does this thread get bumped every couple of years?

You have to do it short handed or you are lighting money on fire.

I was wondering how I missed this thread until I saw the ghost of ANL Bill posting. Epic bump.

Excellent thread in my opinion as information online regarding straddles is limited at best.
However, I have a question regarding sizes of an opening raise against a button straddle as it is common in the live game that I play in.
I raise 4x from the blinds and UTG1-3 and then I make it 3x if no players are involved.
I don't have much experience playing live(less than 200 hours) so I would like to ask any of the experienced players if those are correct sizings.
I would be very thankful for any response.

Welcome to the forum, IWBG. Please go ahead and start a ew thread with that question, as it 1) is different enough from the main thrust of this thread and 2) this thread is very old.

In the new thread, please include the stake you are playing, the average table dynamic (loose-tight, passive-aggressive), the general stack depth, and the aggression factor of the average straddler, etc. These factors make a huge difference in sizing.

Bump. Lots of this advice sounds dated and some of it seems really bad. I’ve been playing in a room with a button straddle and it’s very interesting. There’s a big range of player skills where I play...some barely know the rules and there’s a few “pros” playing. I notice the good players do it nearly 100%. People seem to adjust very very poorly to it too. It’s hard for me to imagine a blind bet could be +ev (or more +ev in this situation) but anecdotally it looks that way to me

Yeah, I see good players do it to. They're spewing. It's so hard to actually measure preflop EV that you'll never come to a definitive conclusion on the profitability of straddles, which is why it's easy for people to be fooled into thinking it's good to do. The closest thing you could do is run preflop sims to estimate the EV of straddling at equilibrium, but when that shows that it's lower EV than playing the BU normally people will just argue that live poker conditions are what make it profitable.

It's common sense. Fundamentally poker is a fight for the blinds, and a straddler is putting in more than half of the blind money everyone is fighting over just for a small preflop advantage. You don't only have to be +EV, you have to perform better than what's normally the most profitable position at the table while putting money in blind. Good luck with that.

It's a completely different story if your straddle influences other people to do the same or if you can get everyone to agree to a round of straddles or a mandatory straddle. It's good for winning players to double the stakes if they're rolled for it.

Still feel the same way I did five years ago.

When you see good players do this, they are either trying to loosen up the game, or they are just action junkies. In a vacuum, it's still bad. If it makes other players spazz out and play horribly, it can have its place, but mostly that's an excuse action junkies give for doing it when really they just crave the action.

The one time I can see button straddling being +EV is in a 3 handed scenario.


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I think that’s possible since we’re already playing a wide range of hands and the blinds would normally defend a min-raise with a lot of calling. It’s harder to call profitably without being able to close action.

Yeah like the extra value you get by acting last postflop and doubling the stakes is a nice perk of a button straddle.

But say you’re playing 2/5 and straddle button to 10. If someone is playing correctly, they’ll be making their open sizes bigger than normal to give you bad pot odds. So when someone in MP raises to 50, are you really defending wide? If not, then you just pissed away 2 bb in a spot where you should’ve lost 0. And if you’re folding 8 times out of 10, that’s 1.6 bb / hand (given 2/5 stakes) worth of cost. Tough to come back from that.


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I was replying to and agreeing with your point about 3-handed. I’ve given my opinion on BU straddles in full games and I’m sticking to it.