So me and 'Cuse arguing it up tonight on what's reasonable range here.

Situation is 1/3 300$ stacks

We are CO

Btn straddles 10

SB/bb/utg call

We raise with what range and why?

I'm going with the top 10 hands in my range and definitely x3 the bet plus the amount the limpers have limped with

KJ KQ AT+ 88+

For fat value.

Raise to 50.

Is hero raising his button A LOT? If so I'd be very wary of someone limping a monster here. I know whenever there is a habitual straddle raiser, I tend to limp. I know it's a terrible mindset to get into where we go for the limp reraise, but these straddlers are just so aggro, they fall into the trap a lot of the time.

Just to clarify: in this spot we are CO vs btn straddle+field.

No one should have reason to believe btn is squeeze happy or whatnot.

Might depend a bit on how often straddler raises his straddle and how well the limpers are aware of that (and could be trapping).

$10 is a pretty big straddle for a 1/3 NL game, no? Anyhoo, effectively playing 30 bbs.

I'm horrible at these range questions. I'm probably raising to $100 with AT+/KQ/TT+ with plans of shipping most flops (especially ones I've whiffed). I don't mind setmining with 99- but it's possible I should be more aggro with some of those mediocre pairs.

GmyguessisthisiswaytootightG

The problem I have with a smaller raise is that this will create a HU pot of $130 with $250 left. What are's our plan when we whiff the flop? Stick in $80 (which is now almost half our stack) and then what if he calls?

I like a bigger raise to $90ish which will create a PSB shove for the flop so that we don't get in these awkward situations.

GcluelessNLnoobG

GG - I think you got to let go of the notion that a straddle bet becomes the new default big blind and artificially deflates stacks accordingly. That's only correct thinking if everyone else thinks the same way, and rarely is that the case.

I'm probably raising 30% of hands from the CO normally, so I'd probably start there and throw out the suited 1gappers, smaller pairs, and iffy aces. Those hands can profitably call the straddle in a bloated pot, and sometimes call a raise if anyone behind us makes one. If I'm raising it's for big-card pair value and I'm dialing in low SPR's with big raises.

I doubt many folks will call pre-flop for $90, rather than shove over, but I guess it happens sometimes.

I think what you're missing is that when we do raise, we do it with hands that have high-card pair value. The straddle and limpers means that JTs is no-longer a raising hand from the cutoff. It's a call. So with the range we should be playing, if we hit, we hit hard, and when we miss, we miss hard. And on the in-between flops (Ex, KQ on J95), our c-bets will have equity when called.

So yeah, raise to $50, get heads up, c-bet $80 on some 60ish percent of flops.

Print da moneyz

I'm probably raising 77+, A10s+, AJo+, and KQ. But it's going to vary a little based on stack size and a LOT based on postflop dynamics. Against fit-or-fold monkeys, that range is going to get WIIIIIIDE. Against tricky opponents, it's going to shrink.

AJo+ Axs KTs+ 66+ raise to $65. Obv want the btn to fold.

I'm pretty sure GG is exactly correct that the straddle becomes the new big blind (dark bet to induce action + minimum amount to play) and SPR adjusts accordingly.

(hopefully non condescending foundational info to follow) The blinds are dark bets to induce action which become the minimum amount required to play a hand (small blind bets first, and if the big blind is a larger denomination then it is technically a dark raise over the small blind's initial dark bet).

The straddle (either voluntary or forced) is a dark re-raise over the big blind, usually with the caveat the he/she retains option of action. So, from that point, the straddle amount is the dark bet to induce action + minimum amount to play.

SPR is deflated due to the function of the straddle being a larger sized bet than the big blind.

I totally agree with this, which is why this is very dependent on limpers tendencies. If anyone starts sticking in some serious money preflop, even though it's "only" 30bbs, they definitely have a big hand. Even AJ/AT are kinda dicey raises here as we can so easily run into a dominating hand; however, I'm hoping AK/AQ just plays bad and flats and then folds to our PSB shove when we both whiff the flop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I agree with spex to a degree. Villains are not adjusting their ranges proportionally. So a 4x the straddle amount bet is viewed as a $40 bet and not called by the same range that calls a $12 bet if it were un-straddled.

Obv there are reducing SPR issues to consider but ime just viewing it as half as deep or 1/3 as deep of a game will bring about the wrong conclusions.

And if we get called on the flop? It just seems rather meh to me to stick in almost 1/2 of our stack and then, what, check down the turn in a huge pot (and, even worse, possibly not even realize our equity if check/raised on the flop or bet into on the river)? With my biggish hands, I want to make sure I get to that river to realize my equity, plus maximize my FE against pairs / dominating hands on the flop, which is why I'd rather raise preflop to setup a PSB on the flop. Even taking down $40 worth of dead money preflop ain't that bad with a lot of these hands.

GcluelessNLnoobG

In this particular hand, the straddle is more than 3x, so yes, opening bet sizes, and thus SPR are going to change. But I've seen the same idea applied to any straddled pot posted on these forums. If folks are raising $25-$35 pre-flop in a 2/5 game, I think they'll still raise that amount if there is a straddle on.

It's even more negligible in a 1/2 game with a $4 straddle, I don't think you'll see guys start raising to $30 when their normal open is $15, you'll probably still see raises to $15, virtually every time.

I have seen people limp only to have the dealer stop the action and tell the guy "No, sir, there's a straddle, you need to put in more money"

I've seen people pick up the chips to limp in and then say "oh wait, is that a straddle", and then limp along with the straddle.

Believe me, no one gives a crap about the straddle.

I'm sure you've seen it too, and you see it A LOT. What you don't see so much is a guy who will limp call for $50 more often when the straddle is on than they will when it isn't.

FWIW, I'd be cooler with the smaller raise with hands that we're pretty much never folding postflop (i.e. ranging from AA where obviously we want action towards KQ where we're kinda just cool taking things down now).

GcluelessNLnoobG

There are a lot of hypotheticals in there but you're clearly describing the minority of worst case scenarios. If we're playing good hands pre-flop, and c-betting with equity post flop, then money should be made.

If we're called on the flop, we can check back the turn and evaluate the river. Maybe bet again if we pick up more equity and we think V will fold to double barrels. If we're called and led into....I don't know, punt I guess. I don't see a lot of LLSNL villains use a stop n go, so if it happened, I'd probably just call it bad luck.

Playing the "what if I miss" game is going to cost you money in the long run. Raising huge pre-flop "take down the pot" is really not great if we're adjusting our range for the straddle and dead money. If we're playing a much tighter range, then we should be going for value, not trying to get everyone to fold.

I like the raise to $90 with something that DOESN'T want to see a flop, like A2s

+1

The reason people will still call with dominated ranges. I'm likely raising 99+ AQ+ KQs.

Depending on the straddles tendencies I'm limp reraising a similar range. I have flatted the straddle in the bb with JJ with 300 effective 1/3 had the straddled raise get 4 callers I shove and get called by K10 off by one villan. Think of how profitable something like that is. Dead money plus Being called by a dominated range. Obv it depends on villans and straddler tendencies but I'm with gg. I'm raising larger to make the flop a PSB shove.

Doesn't a pretty big portion of this depend on what range we expect people to limp/call and limp/fold with here?
If they are folding 90% of the time to a raise of say $70, then 65% of the time they are all folding.
So .651*40 - .35*70 = 26.44 - 24.43 = $2.01
We could literally raise to $70, and open fold the flop and show a profit.

Nevermind our ability to sometimes make a hand post flop, or play better than our opponents, or the fact that we will often have position.

What if they fold 80% of the time?
.409*40 - .594*70 = 16.36 - 41.58 = -$25.22
What if we actually (heaven forbid) play poker post flop.
We will have a pot of (normally) $155 (rake is a bytch), and we need to make up $25.22 post flop, or a measly 16.27% of the pot.
If we are playing 100% of hands, this might be a little bit difficult vs their likely stronger range but with a reasonable range of maybe top 40% of hands I think it should be pretty doable.

I think we can be raising pretty wide here baring some reads that people will get sticky pre flop for larger bets.

Meh, distinctions of SPR and new big blind aside, I agree that players tend to adjust horribly.

I'm raising KJ, KQ, AJ+, 99+ to ~50.....min raise with 22-88 as a blocking bet/pot builder so if you hit your set you'll have a jillion implied odds

What I'm hearing in this thread, is that a big part of our play here is to "take the pot down now", and that our range for raising should be pretty tight. I think KJ is the worst hand I've seen suggested so far in this thread.

That's nuts.

It's flawed poker logic to be leveraging your fold equity heavily with hands that rate to be the best. Betting to "take it down" is completely loco. There are two ways to win hands in hold em. Either you have the best hand at showdown, or you get everyone to fold. Which result would you prefer with hands that have, or are likely to have, value at showdown?

Money LLSNL comes from winning stacks, not pots. And when we're 100BB's deep, that should be Plan A on every single hand. To play for stacks here, we need villains to enter the pot with dominated ranges, and put money in post flop. I'm not going to go into a deep review of the fundamentals, I think we all know what that looks like. Raise enough to get 2 or 3 way, make a pair, value bet. Low SPR's are easily attainable with the pre-flop setup we have in this hand, so getting our money in good should be pretty basic stuff.

If we raise to $50 and get two callers, the pot will be almost $200 and we'll have $250 left to play. That's an awesome situation where we have our opponent out kicked. Even heads up, the SPR is fine, if we're playing the tight ranges that have been suggested throughout this thread.

I don't mind the larger raise, but I'm definitely not doing it with hands that can flop good and win stacks.

So to answer the OP's question, I'd recommend raising to $50 with my top 10% hands, and then raising to $80 with the 11%-35% hands. If I'm making the bigger raise, I should know that I'm only getting called by hands that have me crushed. So I want stuff that I can fold post-flop.

Lot of this discussion depends on villans tendencies. What I don't under stand is your last paragraph. You are saying you want to raise more with a range that is dominated by the villans calling ranges. How is raising an amount that only gets called by better a winning strategy? We have a lower SPR and less maneuverability to push villans of their hands.

So many other details are relevant here...

What's H's image? How often does BTN raise his/her straddle? Do limpers occasionally limp with big hands? Do they ever limp/shove light? If they're capped bc of limping, then what's the top of their respective limping ranges? Does anyone else at the table adjust to a straddled pot vs. a non-straddled pot?

It's almost impossible to give a good answer without knowing any of these things.

In a vacuum, you're probably printing money by potting it ($60) with {KJs+, KQo, ATs+, AJo+, 88+, A2s-A5s, JTs, T9s, 98s}. I know that might look wide, but in general, players limp/call in straddled pots with waaayyyyy too much bs that will just x/f on the flop or x/c flop x/f turn.

I would raise pot with my entire range. If you think you occasionally get limp/3b, then shave off the bottom of the range above and proceed accordingly.

If BTN is a maniac and will gii wide after your raise, then be willing to go felt with all hands above except JTs, T9s, 98s. If BTN is a calling station and will flat $60 with a wide range, then you can prob add in 66-77, KTs for value (just plan on making big cbets against his weak range when heads up and don't be afraid to play for stacks). If pot is multiway to the flop, then just be selective about which boards to cbet.