I played at the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore Sunday night into Monday morning. Though this question came up while playing there, I know this is something that happens in a lot of places.

The game is $1/3, not $1/2, and the cap is $300. So right off the bat you only have 100 big blinds with a max buy-in. Then put yourself at a table with a Mississippi Straddle where players effectively make it a $1/3/6 game and that stack seems half as big as it was before.

I know this forum doesn't love general theory questions but this happened a few times during the game: Wake up with a solid hand such as AQ, AJ, ATs, even KQ or a medium pair (sevens through tens), make it $30 (which seems right with a limper or two) and then have to play a hand out of position against two villains after putting 10% of my stack in the middle. I whiffed nearly every flop in these scenarios and felt like I was burning money - but no more so than when I tried to continuation bet my whiff and lost a lot more than my preflop raise.

I'm not a rookie who complains that my AK never improves so I hate it. Sometimes you miss and fold. It happens. But given the game playing so much higher than the stacks, I was trying to come up with an optimal strategy.

Making even bigger preflop raises was a thought. The positive to that is maybe having a better chance to take down dead money, make it more likely to only have one caller which is a little easier to play against. The negative being an even larger percentage of my stack is in the middle out of position.

So there are drawbacks to that which can pick up smaller $20-40 pots of dead money but also would risk even more significant portions of my stack.

Maybe I am too nitty to see that as the best play - just load up a few more bullets might be ideal over the long haul. And I guess it's better than limping where even a decent board for me could lose to ATC I let in on the cheap (and those pots can be sizable too as we all know). And folding hands like this pre under these circumstances is too nitty even for me, haha!

So what is the ideal way to play these kinds of games where you're not so short that you need to shove preflop but that the straddles and lower buy-ins just make sizing very uncomfortable?

What are the other stacks at the table generally like? It might be worth considering buying in for like $200 and play a standard short-stack strat (generally very tight with large raises pre, and looking to often GII OTF) in straddled pots until you double up, at which point a more normal LLSNL strat should work well against other "deep" stacks.

My regular games are often like this. 1/2 or 1/3 w/ a $10 straddle or rock. I almost always buy in for $300 (although you can buy in for more, and many players do). Honestly, I just play my normal game. However, I know most of the players, so I know when to limp/call, when to raise, who is making moves, etc. Vs. unknowns, I'd play on the tighter side, really try to get a feel for the other players, and pay very close attention to position.

It sounds like you pretty much already know how to play this game. It's going to be high variance, there's just no way around it. Some nights your opens get 3 callers and you whiff every flop, other nights you value town TP/OP left and right and print money. Just be rolled for it.

Edit: Oops. For some reason I thought it was a $10 straddle. But I'm not gonna rewrite everything. Just scale it down.

Your open might be too big. These are kind of like tourney spots and as I'm sure you know, the world class or even decent tourneydonks pretty much never 3x it.

A raise to 20-25 puts plenty of pressure on those with nothing invested (I like $22) having to cold call or raise with 20-40bb stacks. Not great implied odds.

Some straddlers will over fold. Many people will be afraid to play back pre.

Post, you can make smaller c-bets relative to the pot than you otherwise would. I don't think the general principles of Cbetting as far as board textures and so forth change much, if at all.

e.g. when just the straddle calls, if he defends very wide, keep in mind that he usually whiffs the flop. Your bluffs only really need to push him of air and your v bets are going to be targeting hands like middle and bottom pair and ace high.

If people are just calling way too wide and not thinking at all, you can raise larger with bigger hands and magnify their mistake. Particularly hands where a lot of flops aren't great. But with AA and KK you just want action.

I'd watch some videos breaking down tourney hands and try to emulate those.

Sometimes these spots just become super volatile. I was playing 1/2 with a guy doing the $20 (!) Miss. straddle last week and I got stacked twice in an orbit. I didn't play great, but mostly it was just because we were 10-15 BBs deep and I played accordingly. (You don't have to do that. You don't lose much by being a little nittier).

I think lower stakes are most profitable with these unorthadox spots, as you figure out how to adjust. By now, most Vs have had a lot of experience with standard play and at least a fair amount of exposure to correct strat. These are the kinds of situations where they'll often make worse mistakes than usual. You're a smart guy who reads 2+2 and finding these spots tricky. Imagine how many mistakes they are making.

Why feel he need to raise 6x over 2 limpers? In theory a straddled pot should play 1/2 stacks, but you’re also playing llsnl poker. The players you’re playing with don’t typically think in terms of BB but rather in $, so if the normal open is to $15, why not just open a straddled pot to $15?

Additionally, learn to be ok playing postflop multi-way. Most pots in llsnl play multi-way anyway, so just enjoy the variance ride

Because that's barely a minraise and terrible for all the reasons minraising is terrible, something that is exacerbated with multiple limpers?

This is not my experience at all. Straddlers tend to be gamblers at heart and tend to significantly over-defend and raise light. In fact, for many straddlers, I like a L/RR strat, as they will raise (very large) almost ATC if it limps to them.

I don't understand asking people for advice and then being snarky when they try to help you?

Even if you think the advice was wrong?

By asking for advice, you've already indicated that you don't know what's right anyway?

On that note, he didn't say anything about limpers when he mentioned 15$?

I'd also suggest expressing yourself in a more masculine fashion, instead of being catty. That's mainly an aesthetic preference, I guess, but it seems to work better. For example, people will be more inclined to help you in the future.

welp, i guess you have it all figured out then. why bother making the thread?

you know what's funny though - cash game players always look down on tourney players because they typically play cash games terribly, never realizing that it's because in tourneys - where it's correct to do things like 2.x raise - usually play short stacked. Cash game players seemingly overlook short stacked strategy already devised by tourney players because they just assume the tourney players are bad, but they usually have the correct strat for playing short stacked.

addtionally, you should reread this, because it's pertinent to my suggestion and you seemed to have missed it:
In theory a straddled pot should play 1/2 stacks, but you’re also playing llsnl poker. The players you’re playing with don’t typically think in terms of BB but rather in $

I assume you are considering masculinity better than felininity as opposed to being better than femininity?

Maybe poor choice of words. The uptalking, passive aggressiveness just makes me think of a teenaged girl. But it's annoying and counter-productive for a man or a woman.

I just mean, speak directly and with humility. Don't take criticism personally, especially when you've asked for help and someone has taken the time to provide it.

Stuff like that.

Not that Johnny was even very critical. He merely suggested doing things differently. But that's also kinda the point.

Anyway, thanks for the new word.

When you are whiffing flops you are going to burn money. Period. There is no way around this. You can mitigate this some by strategically stealing pots. With a $200 to $300 stack you should be able to apply a lot of pressure to opponents to make them fold, unless they are deep money guys that don't want to fold mediocre holdings for large sums of money preflop.

In general I'd turn up the aggression with more 3betting to steal pots and turn down the passivity. Good luck.

My 1/3 NL game plays very similar. Since late last year (when the rake went up yet again to now $8 maximum) we now allow a $400 BI, but lots of people still BI for way less (I only BI for $200 myself, which is probably the most common BI, although stacks can get larger fast on action tables). We also see lots of straddled pots (can straddle both the Button and UTG), my guess being up to 50% of pots are straddled. Lots of raised pots go multiway (including "large" raises of $20+). And while lots of players are super loose preflop, this ain't their first rodeo; most of them know exactly what is going on (I'll let you figure out how that affects 5way pots when the raiser continues postflop).

I've simply tightened way up, especially OOP, and also gone incredibly passive in EP and even MP (where I have more-or-less a 0% raising range preflop, looking mostly to limp/reraise my good hands with significant dead money in the pot) plus also gone even more passive in LP with the more mediocre hands like AJo/KQo after multiple limpers (where I simply don't have much FE and don't really want to play a bloated small SPR pot with these types of hands). I won't argue that there aren't other ways to play (there probably are) but I'm having ~ok success using this method (but nothing that would be considered crushing).

GgoodluckG

Tourneys have antes. In the mississipi straddle, effectively you play against the Big Blind with a positional advantage. It's a terrible idea miniraising against a Big Blind which has position on you and give her the opportunity to defend 60-70% of her range.

This is is how I look at it. I raise 3BB + 1BB for the limper + 1BB for being out of position. So, if someone straddles on the Button for $6, my default raise starts of at $24. It really should be $30, but I am also trying to be somewhat inviting. Then I add IBB per limper.

If many people call, they surely made a mistake. If they fold, they sacrificed their equity and made a mistake giving you their dead money. After you raised big a couple of times, you will probably start getting some calls from your opponents, good news, they are choosing to make the bigger mistake.

Normal positional rules apply, in other words, you play tigher in EP and so on.

Since effective stacks drop, value of top pairs rises, draws can be played more aggressively, like in tournaments. That's it.

Don't be afraid to check fold. You can still steal some poits if the flop hits your range and you apply pressure selectively.


PS. The biggest problem with the missisippi straddle is being in the big blind against a habitual straddler. That guy not only burns his EV, but also burns your EV. It's a very tough spot to play, i would seat change.

The problem I've always had with this nx+y method is that it doesn't take stack size and thus IO / RIO / expected SPR / etc. into account. So unless we're playing super deep (where the SPR will always be super deep) then I don't see how this method is very useful. i.e. At big SPRs, there's no meaningful difference between like an SPR of 20 and one of 25. At small SPRs (which will mostly result in the game OP is playing), the same difference between an SPR of 4 and 9 is huge.

GcluelesssizingnoobG

That only matters if you are trying to set up or avoid commitment. And if you have a reasonable expectation that your raise will make the pot go HU.

A raise with multiple callers with a shortstack in a straddled pot sets up commitment decisions immediately, no?

ex. Even a $25 raise in a straddled pot (reasonable size?) that goes just 3ways (reasonable result?) with a 100bb stack (not even really shortstacking, at least with regards to a non-straddled pot) produces an SPR of just 3.6 (we're pretty much facing a commitment decision on the flop).

GcluelesscommitmentnoobG

Just pointing why I feel the advise was wrong (in my opinion) isn't snarky.

Except that I mentioned it right there in the OP: Which means either Johnny was offering advice for a situation that wasn't brought up or you weren't paying attention.

Although even opening a pot that is straddled to $6 I would definitely bet more than $15 for the same reason - it's barely more than a minraise.

Pointing out what I feel is not good advice doesn't mean I have it all figured out. it just means that maybe both of us don't have it all figured out.

One thing I do know is why I am raising to begin with: Value and to thin the field. A smaller raise will not do the latter. My whole issue was if even larger raises was just spew.