2/5, effective stack around 450 (mine)*

Hero in EP with QQ. Very aggro stabby villain playing lots of pots button straddles to 10. I raise to 45. Fish in CO flats. Straddler flats. (135)

Flop J98, 2 spades (I have Qs). Check check, villain bets 75. I call, CO calls. (360)

Turn 6d, putting second FD on board. Check check, villain bets 250.

Hero?

*Never usually play this low but I was on my last buyin and the villain in question seemed so splashy that I hoped to double up off him. He was very stabby and called a lot of draws but I had not seen him make a multi street bluff against multiple players.

intriguing id say call except its kind of a lose lose lose situation...if you raise he prolly only has you beat. if you fold he could be on a draw and if you call the river might complete said draw

Why is V acting last post flop if he was the straddler? Is this a button straddle?

Nvm just reread and saw button straddle.

So this is a board we should do a ton of checking on but OOP with an overpair that blocks straights, has a gutshot draw, and is in need of some protection, there is merit to c-betting here. We can certainly have all the sets and maybe QTs as an EP opener. Betting may make the hand easier to play.

AP, nothing to do but call the flop bet.

Turn is annoying. If V and CO were good players I would fold. Given one is aggro/stabby and the other is a fish, coupled with a safe turn and lots of draws that could be barreling after we took a passive line, I just ship it at this low SPR.

What's your strategy for playing villains like this? That's really what you need to work on. Is that a table you should be at with your last buyin?

Given how splashy he is and your stack is less than the pot, then you should just shove. It's the same as a call anyways really given what you have left.

Is that you doug polk?

Button straddles are the devil. Pure evil.

What is our actual position here? SB? BB? UTG? Did the blinds complete before action got to us? Is there an argument to be made for doing something fancy pre, like flat-calling to back-raise?

Think I'd prefer to check-raise flop, as the PFR and OOP when multi-way. We want this HU with somebody, don't care who or which.

The turn is why - what the serious f**k are we supposed to do with QQ, on this board, at this stack-depth, and these two V's? Fold? Call? Jam?

I guess we jam, because aggro V, but we're not fist-pumping to GII with just an over-pair and multi-way on this super-connected board.

watch it bud

Happily stacking off given reads. Crai on flop might be better.

What OmahaDonk wrote.

If we check flop with intention of raising, I prefer just betting because the range that calls a crai is stronger than a range that calls/raises a flop bet.

Yeah I hate that button straddles are allowed lol. I believe I was UTG+1.

Flat calling to back raise is really interesting since the aggro button was taking his option like 75% of the time. Hadn't thought of that.

Results: I nitted up and folded. CO also folded. No showdown.

Was planning on getting it in on most boards but the other players having nut advantage and it being multiway caused me to chicken out. Check raise all in on turn may have been great as he likely had something like pair + draw that would have to call with little equity.

I must say I hate the button straddle too. This is a tough one. With the Qs blocking some combo draws and double blocking the QT flopped straight I like check jam on flop at this stack depth. There are just too many bad cards coming and a lot of players will stack off w top pair or pair+draw or even naked flush draws here.

As played I would also fold turn. Most players dont bomb turn even with strong draws, they often will take the free card.

Let me add a point about the button straddle. In my poker room there is a lot of button straddling too, but most players dont think about why its bad.

Every time I play I will straddle UTG. And I make a point to tell the whole table I only straddle UTG and the button straddle isnt good because its not fair for the blinds to have to act first and it forces them to play tighter and there will be less action in the game. And after a while most at the table will move to UTG straddle instead of button once they see how its working.

I don't think V has to be "bluffing", as it got checked to him and he's gonna like betting any J and potentially some weaker hands like T9. Would probably go for the c/r on flop.

What about a button straddle with a mandatory blind min raise from sb?

Go home, Omaha. You're drunk.

I basically never straddle UTG. I BTN straddle to liven up a game, but I never UTG straddle unless the whole table is doing it and it will keep others happy. If I can, I get them to BTN straddle. As the straddler, you want to be on the BTN.

And I've never seen a difference in action regardless of straddle position. I actually love it when someone straddles the BTN on my SB or BB -- makes them so easy to play. I fold most of my SB, regardless, and I can deviate my SB and BB play depending on who the straddler is and how the game is playing -- although it's still often a fold, which is fine by me.

All in pre

Should have stayed at my gumars house

Not loving it, but I think we jam the turn as played. We can get called by worse and we are going to have pretty much nothing behind if we just call.

Check jamming the flop is also an option, but if villain is going to double barrel all his draws and many worse value hands on the turn (you did say he is stabby and agro), then we might extract the most by check raising the turn.

If that's the case, the most + EV thing to do in this spot is to blind min raise the SB and any other blind bets in between you and the SB. People overfold to blind bets and don't stack off wide enough, so if people call you you can go all in blind and if they call you you can look at your cards and take your bet back because your blind bet is not a straddle and you cannot raise. But if they muck, you win. If you get raised, look your opponent in the eye and if they look nervous then go all in dark, but don't tell them you didn't look.

If the dealer at any time announces you have blind raised, call the floor immediately and tell them the dealer is not allowed to announce you raised blind and they are colluding. If they don't side with you, take your business elsewhere and write a nasty comment on Poker Atlas.

Foreword: I also hate btn straddle and almost never play in games where it is allowed, so I have very little experience with this type of dynamics.

Anyway, we started the hand with 45bb (straddle) effective.
At this stack depth, I would keep it simple and just cbet flop for ~2/3 pot, with the plan to shove almost any turn.

Shove turn as played, not fist-pumping but still quite mandatory imo.

The room I play in most often only allows for a UTG straddle, but there's another room I sometimes play that will allow anyone to straddle from any position, with action starting from the left of the straddle, but where the earliest position has a priority for the decision of whether or not to straddle (like a first right of refusal based on earliest position, so UTG has the first priority, then going in order from his left).

So, there's a lot of button straddling in that room. And I've seen it a lot on live streams/vlogs. I agree with Bart Hanson that it just ruins the game.

The BTN straddle creates a weird dynamic, where players struggle to adjust, especially in the blinds and EP. So some will have a limp-3B range. I'm not sure if that's the best response to the BTN straddle, but it makes some sense, if the game is loose.

Like, here, you open EP, and get 2 calls from LP, in a spot where the BTN might not have come along if he hadn't straddled, in which case you'd be going to the flop heads up, Or maybe CO calls, BTN folds, and one or both blinds come along, but you wouldn't be OOP to them, just the CO.

Alternatively, if you limp here, maybe the CO raises, the BTN calls, and you can back-raise. Or CO limps, BTN raises, and you back-raise.

As played, when you open and get called by CO and BTN, and see this flop, I think it somewhat forces us to either play our QQ very aggressively, or play it like a bluff-catcher.

The way the action went, it seems to me that the CO and the BTN could both have really wide ranges here, to include some flopped straights with QT or T7, but also some sets, 2P, 1P + a draw, or just a draw, or just two overs, etc.

Some reads would help. Like, does either V seem competent enough to realize they shouldn't be calling your $45 open very wide when you're only starting with $450? What sort of hands would they have when they call that raise pre? What's BTN's range to bet here? What's CO's range to call?

The 6d is kind of a brick, inasmuch as you were already behind T7, and neither should have much 96, 86, or 75 in their range. When CO doesn't check-raise flop, we probably have him beat, so this somewhat feels like a good spot to jam, even though I don't love it.

This goes back to our debate in that other thread, about starting out by checking flop as the PFR when OOP and multi-way. We could have check-raised the flop when the pot was smaller, and had a lot more fold equity.

Now, on the turn, we have less, and can get looked up lighter, by some hands that might have folded, but which still beat us, like J6 and other random nonsense the BTN may have. With QQ, there isn't a lot we can target for value that we're actually beating. It's mostly Jx, 77, and some draws.

I hope you guys realize that if you are going to straddle, the BTN is the best possible place for you to straddle, right?

(If not, poker is definitely alive and well.)