assuming everyone is 200bb deep in 1/3, lets say there is a straddle to $6 in a $1/3 game, a caller and someone raises to $40. you have a good hand to 3b with in position. you do you make it $120-40 or do you downsize your 3bet because its a straddle pot?

Interesting question. Going back one step, I usually downsize my open size in straddle pots, reason is that I noticed people fold easier to a normal 4x or 5x raise when it's into a straddle. So I tend to make it more like 3.5x to ensure they still have a decision.

3bet size I don't downsize because of the straddle specifically but if I'm 100bb deep (50bb with straddle) then 3betting sizing starts getting around the 1/3 stack inflection point so I have to pay more attention because of that factor. That might mean I downsize to avoid pot commitment but it's not because of the straddle as such.

There probably is an argument to downsize 3bet sizes because I imagine there is additional fold equity there but I haven't seen enough of this type of action to internalise an adjustment.

For the most part you think of the straddle as big blind, and 3 bet and 4bet sizes should be about the same. Something like 3-3.75x plus the dead money from cold callers in position, and anywhere from like 4 to 6x out of position plus the dead money from cold callers.

Sometimes awkward raise sizes and stack sizes may play a role, but for the most part I am doing the same raise size, but mindful of SPRs, making sure to jam SPR will be below 1 postflop.

If anything I think it's more stack depth as opposed to straddle, and it affects the 4bet size more than the open raise or 3bet size.

This could easily turn into a longer topic but:

- 3bet size goes down (Example: 200bb, 3bet size IP should be around 3.5x. 100bb, 3bet size IP should be around 3x)

- your range is significantly tighter



That being said, if I were regularly playing a game where there are $600 stacks, a $6 straddle, and it was common for a $40 RFI I would in this order:

- Find a different game if possible. Our edge is significantly reduced playing this short in relation to pot size

- If no other game, I'd solve/work out a strategy for roughly a 50bb stack. $40 RFI is over the standard 5/10 RFI and getting very close to 10/20. So I'd just default to a 50bb strategy.

The example is very specific. In the 1/3 games I'm familiar with, a standard open is between $9-15, and if there is a straddle, most people only increase their opening size a little bit, say $15-20, definitely not the double-size the "additional BB" would seem to suggest. An open to $40, even over a limper, would be very large. Therefore, it would likely be a tight range, and I wouldn't feel a need to downsize my 3-bet in fear V would fold a lot more, but I might consider it for SPR. (I also would have a very tight 3-betting range in this example).

On the other hand, more generally, people don't tend to think of bets by number of BBs/X-times the original open/percentage of pot in live low-stakes. They largely think of bet sizes as numbers of dollars. That means you have more or less FE based purely on the psychological size of your bets. In limped pots, you can often overbet the flop to build a pot, for example, and get as many callers as you would have with a 1/2-pot bet. Similarly, if you want customers for your 3-bets, you may have to size them down in straddled pots, just because a "standard" sizing is such a big number that it will have more FE than you want.

Cliffs: It depends.

With the stack sizes you gave, no I would not.

If I had a big hand, the “normal” sizing in your example would be an amount that denies any hand worse than mine proper odds to try to crack me. (Though I might stick to the low end, like 120 or 125.) And that’s fine. Let them make a big mistake.

Since we'll be creating a small SPR that will be impossible to get away from TP, I just take the stack sizes into account and offer poor 8:1 IO. So with shortstacks I might go smaller the more I want action. But with $600 effective, I'd go at least $115 to offer those poor IO of 8:1. Keep in mind that if we go even as little as $100 that the SPR will be 2.5, so we're never folding TP postflop; if we're never folding postflop, we can't give good IO (and $100 would give IO of 10:1, which ain't great, but it's 25% more than I'd feel comfortable giving).

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