Hi all:

Have a couple of questions surrounding straddled pots. I play in rooms and home games where you can straddle UTG and on the BTN. My main game is $2/5.

From my observations people love to limp with pretty good holdings in these pots, especially UTG-MP. I constantly see 88-JJ limping in these spots and the flop seeing 3-4 people.

Q1: I seem to get in positions where I'm holding 66-99 and I'm on the CO or late position. I look up and see 1-3 limps and I'm not sure how to proceed. I normally just limp here and essentially hope to hit a set. I think if I raised I would have a 50% chance to get heads up. What is the best line here?

Q2: Since you can straddle on the BTN that is where 90% of straddles come from. If I know the straddle is 90%+ defending his straddle, what should my opening range be? Also what about sizing? (Unlimped, 1 limp, etc.)

Thanks for the help.

People tend to play terribly in straddled pots IMO...over defending, etc. If that is the case I would simply play more value oriented hands. If the BTN has straddled and I am in M-LP I will raise a bit bigger than I normally would simply trying to "gain the button".

As to the 66-99 hands it depends so much on you image and image of the limpers. Are they limp callers with wide ranges, are they "trappy" like you describe, etc. In a vaccuum, I would almost always raise over these limpers but that's a bit of a stylistic thing.