am I the only one who doesn't like when a loose/bad player starts straddling every hand when its time to post BigBlind? from any other position on the table I don't mind and in fact I encourage people to straddle because it is a sucker bet to put in 2BB dead preflop in the worst position, however when that 2BB is being put in on top of the required 1BB then basically it opens up the door to make all mistakes from the BB to be 2x as costly postflop (in fact it can be wayyyyyy more than 2x more costly if the game is playing superdeep)

what is the best way to counter this issue? typically I would ask them in a friendly tone something like 'oh do you straddle every opportunity?' and then play it from there based on their answer.

if they say they just do it occasionally and when they are feeling lucky or tired or gambley or something then I guess I would just stay in my seat especially if I have a good/great position on the worst player(s) at the table however if my seat is only just OK and they are doing it 100% of the time then I typically will change seats if there is no chance they will stop.

does anyone have any suggestions of how I can try to talk someone to the left of me out of straddling all the time so that I can play BlindvsBlind with the fishy on my right? of course I wouldn't want to come off as condescending or rude or anything that may scare them out of the game because chances are they are also very fishy because of the fact that they straddle so often and I want them and their money to stay at my table just not to be making my OOP mistakes more costly.

any suggestions?

thanks

it doesn't bother me. i really don't want to see a 5way limped pot with 59o and have the flop come 678r and get stacked by 9T. at least that is my thinking anyway. more times than not, it saves me money by not seeing a free flop. plus, i'm not really comfortable playing over 100bb's deep so i <3 when everyone straddles.

if it bothers you then i would just get a seat change or table change.

I sense you must have a strong online background to feel that you are "missing" something because you don't get to play blind vs blind. In live play, blind vs blind happens such a small minority percentage of the time that it is hardly worth noticing.

The VAST majority of your profit is going to come from MP+ positions and not the blinds.

In the case of someone always straddling your big blind, that is actually an opportunity for you to realize a lot of extra profit via squeezing.

Quite often, in these sorts of straddled pots, you will have 10bb of dead money lying on the floor in which you can scoop up if you are willing to fire a 15bb squeeze followed up by a 20bb flop bet on 100% of all flops vs 2 villains or less.

Obviously depends on table dynamics and our image. But in general, when someone is "always" straddling our blinds that is neither good nor bad. It's merely an opportunity to adjust and realize profit if we understand how to properly exploit our image and the table dynamics.

Lastly, we can never fold too much from the blinds. So having to fold merely because someone straddled and robbed us of the opportunity to play our 95o or J4s bs hands isn't something we should be butt hurt over. Not in the least. In the rare instance of us having too many thinking players on the table which would recognize our squeezes for what it is and call us light... meh... all that means is we just tighten up our squeezing range and again make more profit by adjusting by squeezing with a strong range and having them call us down light.

FWIW, if I have a strong image and my table is very fit-n-fold then I will squeeze with T8s+, 98s+, 99+ and all broadways.
If I'm at a table of thinking players that will call my squeeze light then I will tighten my squeezing range to KJ+, AT+, TT+

Lastly, here is some modeling I did on squeezing a while back showing the profitability of squeezing during straddles

Here is the original thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...heory-1194262/

Or you could say, "Hey that looks like fun! Lets all straddle every time! And then... whenever you lose a pot, you have to drink a shot!"

Happens more than you think. Bring chips.

Anyone putting more money into the pot pf without looking is to your advantage and should always be encouraged. You still have to play tight OOP, you can move seats so that you are btn everytime this guy straddles and you will have more opportunities to play.

Yes mistakes are twice as costly, so play well and make less mistakes than your opponents, that is where your edge comes from.

I play at a 5/10/20/40 game (not always 40) and here UTG is the straddler but its unmandatory so anyone that wants can straddle anytime they want, so i never straddle but ppl straddle anyway every orbit and it just simply seems like alot of free money. Yes it gets shallower stacks from 150bb to 75bb (and when 40 straddle its 35bb) deep as most ppl buyin for ~1500 so the table gets shallower but more dead money in the pot. I assume that all the dead money really is just free money if just play it tight.

I did a thread about this but it got locked cus of wrong part of the forum. But im really curious about how our wr effects when people decides to straddle (and i dont have too)

Just learn to play tighter in the BB, so what if u have to throw away. Sounds very weird that ur ok with straddles from everywhere else but the BB. What about when someone straddles on ur SB? Ur still oop but for only half. What about when ur utg+1?.

If ur letting it get to u mentally then its something u really need to work on because I bet its coming out well u play. Just treat it like anyother position and try to play ur best. Dont sweat the small ****, theres bigger fish to fry at the tables.

Happy playing

You win a lot less than you think by getting to see free flops in your big blind with garbage starting hands. Yes, you will miss out on the occasional big blind special. But on the other hand, when you pick up a premium, you get to play a massively bloated pot with lots of delicious, delicious dead money. (Plus squeezing and all that, if the situation is right for it.)

Encourage the player three seats to your left to straddle; that's a clear win

Just played for 6 hours with both my big and small blind straddled every time. These straddlers were loose, not aggressive; they didn't raise their straddles often preflop.

Did that make me call more? No. I think I called 3 times total. All other big/small blinds were folded. I never got a raise-worthy hand in those positions. People were calling raises light, so squeezing/bluffing would've been no good.

Every time they straddle my blind, I just think to myself "okay, this makes my decision (whatever it is) easier." I play like a huge nit from the blinds anyway so it's not a big deal. I bet, if you adopted this strategy, you would save a lot of money. Sometimes I think not losing money is more important than winning money in poker. Simplistic, but it makes sense if your losses are bigger (though less numerous) than your wins, which is the case for many.

Mental energy is a limited resource and I think it's worth prioritizing what skills we improve as we play. If you have to choose between plugging a leak like this or, say, making more thin value bets, it's clear to me that this is more important. Just make yourself fold your marginal blind hands even if it pisses you off. After you fold your fifth one you will be less pissed off. You'll get used to it, then be proud of the discipline you've trained into yourself. Experimenting in this situation (like with squeezing) comes after you have learned to be disciplined.

DjustmyverystrongopinionsabouthowtolearnpokerS

I hate it when people are putting in free money blind too, I'd rather play small pots- I recommend a table change to one with old guys and people on iPads

Shouldn't really bother you and will allow for some pretty great squeeze spots on your BB. If it really does bother you though, seat change so that he's straddling on your BTN.

great post. i agree with this

Either sit out and buy the button or seat change.


http://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-s...-players-19149

The BB is the nut low for every fricken hand.

LOL at thinking that someone straddling on your BB is somehow better than a non-straddled BB. Your basically sacrificing your $2 BB 80% of the time without seeing a flop.

I want to address this point because it is just incorrect. This was kind of the whole point of me doing my models to PROVE that we can profitably squeeze with a wide range of hands vs players that will call semi-light. As long as the pot has 4 or more limpers in it, we can squeeze.

Or put another way. If you frequently encounter these sorts of situations where 5, 6, or 7 players limp into a straddled pot (or a pot builder weak sauce raised pot) and you have a chance to close the action, you should be squeezing like florida orange juice with a plan to fire a decent bet (1.5 x the squeeze) on 100% of all flops if you get called by 2 players or less.

Personally, I'm comfortable squeezing with a range as low as 98s+, 88+.

Trust me, if you don't have squeezes in your arsenal, you are missing a vital component to your overall winrate.

If you understand how to properly squeeze, you can add an easy 1BB/hr to 2BB/hr to your overall longterm winrate. Squeezing also has metagame value to your overall game by vastly increasing your deception. You squeeze once or twice a session, THEN when you pick up AA, KK, QQ and make a big raise or 3-bet its amazing how much more action you are likely to get.

I always feel like the poker gods reward me when I squeeze. I can't tell you how many times I've squeezed, won a pot then within the next orbit I get dealt a monster QQ+

Anyways, I'm adamant about this point. There are certain tools we need to have in our bag of tricks and squeezing is definitely one of them. If you are NOT squeezing regularly then you are missing some serious +EV spots that will not only provide immediate chips to your stack but will also augment your overall game increasing your deception as well as your ability to get paid off on your big hands.

What do we want to look for when squeezing?

We want to look for spots where our villains are showing weakness. Pot builder raises from loose players that get called by other loose rec players and ABC players are perfect spots to squeeze. Also when we have a strong image. Lets cash in on that strong image picking the right spots. There is nothing worse than to have QQ+ raise and everyone folds Might as well use that image and fold equity to your advantage with hands like J9s, ATs, KQo...

Dgi, are you talking about reraising when someone opens on the straddle, or opening when people limp? In the game I was in, those two players straddled but people almost never raised preflop. It's like the $6 was scaring them into just calling with AJ.

I thought the most interesting thing about your graphs was how much more profitable squeezing becomes as we add limpers. That's a bit of a side note though. Are the units, BB, half-straddles? So let's say we get 5 limpers in 1/3/(6)NL and I raise to 20bb. That is 60, correct? Not 120.

I'm pretty sure I'd get called 95% of the time if I raised $30 in that game. Their limping and 30-calling ranges are approximately identical there. But your 20bb graph is still profitable, and I'd imagine people not calling nearly as much if I bet $60. And if their calling range is what you picked, then it's automatically profitable (from a preflop standpoint) right? Would you consider ~90% c-bet frequency to be automatically profitable as well, on all but the worst boards? Or in other words, in your experience, do most villains play fit or fold in huge pots like this? I haven't played enough 3(4?)! pots to get a feel for it.

Great post about squeezing DGI.

That is a tool i need to sharpen in my arsenal, thanks for the reminder and useful thoughts about it.

If you have some more to add regarding to fav positions when squeezing, or other stuff when it comes to pick a good squeezespot please put it out there.

It may be helpful to think about when not to squeeze.

1. The raiser has a tight range. If OMC who hasn't played a hand in an hour and hasn't raised in 4 hours raises in EP, fold. He's likely only raising super premiums and isn't going away.

2. Bad image. If you've been caught several times in the last hour raising pf and losing the hand (doesn't matter if you were ahead or not), they aren't going to buy into that you just happened to have AA.

3. Calling stations. Squeezing requires fold equity. If you don't have any, it quickly becomes a -EV move.

The other trap people get into is that they get married to their hand. If you are squeezing light and someone decides to 4bet, you need to let the hand go. Flop texture matters on the cbet. If the flop comes 334r and three people called pf, a large portion of their range is PP that they aren't folding.

Finally, most LLSNL players forget dgi's comment that this is done once or twice an 8 hour session. That means about 3 out of 4 times, you will show up with a premium hand when you 3bet in that situation. Your squeeze gets protection from the strong hands. They may grumble that you're bluffing, but they can't call it down light because most of the time you have it. That means not doing it every time you have 88+, 98s+. You'll be so unbalanced that even the densest villain will pick up that your range is weak.

A little follow-up here:

I tried this out last Friday. Been on a winning streak and figured I had some leeway to run an experiment. A few notes:

I did it with ATC (did not wait for 98s) Not sure if that's spew or not, but I feel like the players + my image matter a lot more than the cards here.

All of these were from the blinds. Wondering how often I should do this on the button. I guess the disadvantage of squeezing from the button is that the blinds/straddle might wake up with hands; if you squeeze from the BB over a bunch of limpers you really only have to worry about the straddler who is holding ATC. At some point, I may try a session where I call with my decent hands and 3-bet all of my monsters and some of my rags.

I tried it in un-straddled pots. I raised to $45 in unstraddled pots and $55 in straddled pots. Not sure if risking 15bb to win 5bb (unstraddled pot) is +EV or not.

I was winning at the time. I think this is very important. I will never do this when losing.

Like most "moves," it's probably only good after you know the players. Who is fit-or-fold, who's a calling station, etc. This allows us to make the correct decisions if we get called.

Here are the results of my first experiment:

1/3 NL.

1st opportunity, straddled to $6, four limpers to me in the BB, I raise to $60 with rags. All folds. +10bb

Cool. I thought $55 might work better because of the extra syllable, and might save me $5 in risk. I lowered it to that from here on.

A bit later, I get KK in an unstraddled pot that's 3-limped to me and raise $45, get a caller who folds to my c-bet on the flop (I showed). ~+32bb

Next: 5-Limped, not straddled, pot. Raise it up to $40 with unsuited disconnectors, a fit-or-fold player calls, folds to my c-bet. ~+16bb

Next: 4-limped, straddled pot. I raise to $55 with T2o. (I remember this hand because it was the worst one I squeezed with.) See the flop OOP against two calling stations, whiff, check, they bet, I fold, -18bb.

So overall this made me 8bb over 6 hours, 40bb if you include the KK hand. Small sample size obv, but I plan on doing this some more, when I'm winning. And probably not with T2o....I think it was going to my head at that point.

"Extra syllable" best part of this thread IMO.

Might have been said but,

Thank him. How many threads do we see that have OP check T6o in the BB, flop top nad bottom, then the turn card is an overcard that puts 3 to a flush and 3/4 to a straight on board? BB is the only position where we can't voluntarily fold (I guess we can fold instead of check if we really wanted to) but straddles let us fold our BB.

AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I basically grunched all the way down just to chime in with that.

Yeah, thank him for forcing you to actually consider playing a hand from the second-worst spot at the table.

Actually though, I HATE button straddles, don't think they're copacetic, and would be pissed about someone button-straddling my BB all the time. But not too bad, noting what I said above.

Is button straddle played differently in different places? I always thought action went from UTG around as normal with the blinds acting after the button, a guy who ran a backroom brick&mortar place told me that once. But the only time I played in a casino with it the SB acted first.

Exactly. The way I've always seen it implemented was where for some asinine bizarro reason action would start at the SB.

It is room dependent. Some places action starts UTG. Other places action starts on SB and button gets last action.