Is straddling worth it?

Ok consider this. You are a regular with (you think) an edge on the table. You are playing 2/5 with buy in between say 200 and 500. Most people have between 500 and 1000. Is it worth straddling if everyone agrees to a $10 straddle?

So for me personally I feel I play best when the stacks are super deep (250BB+), which would seem to indicate a no straddle policy for me. On the other hand I view myself as having an edge and consequently, given I have sufficient bankroll it would also make sense to want to play higher.

Common live mistakes:
Short stack (40BB-60BB) - Play too many hands
Medium stack (60-150BB) - Play too many hands, call too often, too passive in line
Deep stack (150BB+) - Plays hands that don't make nut hands, unable to put opponent on hand, plays out of position, calls too often.

So what do you think are the reasons for/against a straddle?

Wait - you think you have an edge playing 'super deep'....but you're buying in for only 40-100BB? Hint: You're not playing deep if you're the table shortie.

No table buy in limits is $200-500. Stacks get bigger later at night = $1500-$2000.

I think it is a less bad idea if you can get the whole table to agree to a round of straddles.

I will agree to a table straddle if effective stacks are 200BB or if the players immediately on my right are the type to stack off light with top pair bad kicker.

I'm not going to agree to a table straddle if it just means we're playing 50BB hands now.

Most players have no idea why they straddle. They saw it once on HSP and then saw someone else on the table do it and now they do it as well because it's "cool".
I might get hated for what I am going to say. But a straddle is a waste of money. Putting in an extra 2bb voluntarily only to fold it most of the times is a major leak if you ask me.

So no, I don't straddle ever, and don't suggest it to anyone either. Save your 10 dollar and buy yourself a big ice cream.

i already have a loose enough image, but i'm not a fan of straddling because you're putting in money in UTG which is horrible position.

i'll straddle if i'm tilted or at loose passive tables where there is a lot of limping... but very, very rarely. straddle @ 5/10 is 20 bucks that is voluntarily down the drain more often than not ( eff that). maybe straddled at 10/20 three times in my life... 40 bucks down the tube, no way.

In the home game I was playing in weekly I'd straddle pretty often. We were only playing 50c/$1 but there was no max so there'd be absurd stacks sometimes. I was definitely one of the better players in the game but also one of the tightest, despite the fact that I talked a lot and tried to keep the game fun and the money flowing into the middle. I was not talkative and happy-go-lucky solely because I'm a talkative and happy-go lucky-person; I also acted like that in order to try to give off some sort of a loose image. In order to further that image, I'd straddle pretty often. I was rarely in a big pot with any sort of weak holdings, and I think I sometimes got paid off when I shouldn't have because of all of the above factors.

Anyway, my point is that if you think the table may perceive you as tight then I don't think straddling is bad, whereas if you're already perceived as a loose player then I don't really see the point.

I'm perceived as a pretty laggy player in the games I play, and I've grown to love straddling live. These are my reasons for doing so:

1. It's just less boring for me, Boredumtilt is a huge factor for me, and straddling is fun, it leads to fun situations, even when I have to fold.

2. The games I play in can get pretty weak/tight/nitty.

3. The 3/4bet from the straddle is pretty well respected regardless of what your table image is - though it's not exactly like i'm playing 25/50NL vs pro's here, and I love 3betting....

4. It creates a lot of opportunities for people to make big mistakes with regards to SPR/bet sizing/etc. it can completely change the dynamics of a game around.

5. It throws a lot of otherwise semi-competent players off their games especially players that have issues with Bankroll management for the level the game is being played at.

6. I find personally, where I play (qualified), that usually the pumped up action remains a few hands later when I find myself with the BTN.

7. I see a lot of players of the "grinder" type who are decent in their fundamentals trying to limit variance as part of their overall strategy. Since my play style seems to thrive on variance, i'd like to promote it at the table. I think the straddle certainly does that.

8. I think in the games I play I can negate some of the positional advantage via postflop play, this may be egoleak but...

9. While it lessens the SPR for the current hand, I think one of the nice effects is that the additional action that it encourages/is incurred results in short stackers getting it in earlier either eliminating them from the table or making them deeper

10. It's just something that i'm comfortable doing, and that's entertaining to me personally. While I don't necessarily benefit in a tangible +EV method, some of the situations I have seen arising out of mistakes made because I've decided to straddle/my 3bet frequency when doing so have been utterly hilarious, ie. limped aces expecting me to 3bet and getting 4 limpers behind with me checking etc.

Anyway I accept my reasons could all be perfectly invalid/illogical....

I started a thread in poker theory about straddling...

I'm trying to model the mathematical aspects of straddling. I'll probably be working on it for the next couple of months, slowing going through the various situations.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...heory-1194262/

There are reasons to straddle. i1lsia lists some of the situations where a straddle can be profitable. A weak/nitty/BR concerned table is one area where I think it can be profitable if you are willing to play true LAG. That means you're raising a couple of limpers a lot of the time and are going to put a lot of pressure on them on the flop. TBH, not a lot of players are capable of doing this well. The downside is that doing this even on a mediocre basis is going to end up as spew.

Another reason is if you are in a regular game where this is expected and you want to keep playing in it. At the highest level, durrrr and Ivey get invited to big Macau games because they'll gamble with the local regulars. There's lots of other players who don't get invited, even though they are weaker players because the main goal of the game is to gamble. They don't want some TAG playing in their game. If you're at a home game and it is +EV to play, it may be a cost of playing.

However, a player with an edge never wants to encourage straddling. In cash games, the edge a player has over his opponent increases with stack size. At 5BB, the game is simply a matter of deciding if your starting hand is good and shoving. The villain's sole strategy is whether his hand is +EV to call. That's it. There's no position, post flop play, etc. It is hard to make a costly mistake because even if you call 72o vs. AA, you only lost 4BB in equity. With 300BB, a river mistake can cost 100BB or more. There's much more to consider. Playing edge is more valuable.

Therefore, if you're at a casino and you have an edge, then don't straddle. Make up any excuse possible. Tell them 4BB is your unlucky number, you always get AA cracked, whatever.

I track my play and keep a poker journal and speaking from my own experience, my biggest losses came from when I straddled.

In my case, I would get emotionally involved in hands I straddled which turned me into a "donk". I would feel the donk urge to "defend" my straddle as if just because I straddled this was now "my pot". Then throw in my ego and skill. Obviously, since I'm such a better player than everyone else I can "win" no matter what, right?

So now, I've got the donk emotional attachment to my hand bolstered by my ego and skill playing a multiway inflated pot out of position...

So in my case, my straddles went something like this:

Donk emotion + ego + horrible cards + OOP + multiway inflated pot = SPEW!!!!

So, I banned myself from straddling. THe only way I ever straddle is if the entire table straddles, otherwise, I never straddle.

Ahh, well I mean you can just look at in in another way. The straddle itself isn't necessarily a play that you utilize to win the hand or perform some elaborate trap/setup/3bet bluff as more of an investment in how the table/game will shape up.

- You are annoying the nitty reg's who sit there for hours limp-trapping away hoping to busto people with the nuts.

- You are creating all sorts of calamity with people's bet sizing and depending on how they play getting them into all sorts of awkward spots.

- You are creating a nice friendly more gambling oriented environment which is inviting to folks out for the poker experience who've seen the straddle on TV. This in turn makes the games better. I really like yammering away and talking up a storm at the table too. I like getting into pseudo intellectual conversations with anyone about any hand and finding out what they think I had etc. I like showing bluffs and encouraging other people to do so, and 3betting light. I like making some pretty stupid plays to just for the sake of fun. The funner the game the more money will flow into it, the more the bad players will stick around etc.

- You are establishing an image of control and encouraging people to be more passive when you are in pots (well...sometimes anyway)

- You start tilting reality for the ABC poker types and the reg's. I think this is pretty important actually for a LAG type player. A lot of your profit is going to be made imho by putting people way out of their comfort zone, and neutralizing some of the things they think are their advantages - not necessarily against you, but against everyone else. One of the things that I always find amusing personally is the lengths reg's go to avoid confrontations with each other, its like a mild form of collusion. Personally i'd like to increase the likelyhood the regs will play against each other, i'd also like to decrease the SPR when they are in hands vs fish.

Anyway, maybe i'm wrong, but I still find playing this way to be pretty fun.

To be fair almost all of your post boil down to the fact that you like doing it and find it fun rather than because it will make us money. Nothing wrong with that but it seems you've mainly decided you are doing it first and then found things to justify it rather than seriously considered the EV.

Basically it is almost impossible that any small changes in dynamic etc make up for putting in an extra 2BB with 100% of your range UTG. If you lose 1 of those on average you are pissing away 3bb an hour. Most big winners max out about 10-12 BBs an hour. HUGE LEAK

Obviously if the whole table agrees then you are just increasing the stakes, although that is not necessarily much of an advantage as often stated as villains have the same amount of money to lose.

I'm a winning yet fairly unimaginative ABC player so potentially I have an unimaginative, ABC approach to straddling -

why on earth would we voluntarily put extra $$ into the pot without seeing our cards when we're sat on one of the worst positions on the table?

clearly, the argument changes somewhat if it's a table wide agreement and is done as a strategy to encourage action, in which case I'd be happy to do it if I felt like I had an edge on the table but as for voluntarily straddling...not for me thanks

I think thats fair, I should also have prefaced this with saying I've only recently started to straddle with any regularity ~1month, it could very well turn out I hate the play in another month, and come back and look at my posts and think wow I'm an idiot (its happened in the past ;p)

I *currently* [subject to me becoming more intelligent or changing play styles] disagree regarding how much the dynamics can affect winrates though, at least based on how I play poker -(which in and of itself is probably sub optimal). As I said, I think making the reg's, the ABC guys, and the weaker TAGbots as uncomfortable as possible is pretty important. I'm not a 10-12 BB/hr winner at my NLHE stakes (2/5) though, and even if I was i've only done this for a month which is a pretty crappy sample size to begin with hence I can accept that it's ultimately a significant leak and a -EV play.

The quick answer to this is that it's always going to be -ev to straddle UTG (straddling from the button is different). Anyone whose played online and been able to track stats will see they are not profitable from the blinds. Every player loses money from the blinds- the only question is how badly do you bleed? Some are very close to BE from the blinds, but that takes a lot of skill.

So voluntarily playing an extra blind every round is going to cost you money. No one can win money doing it, just like no one wins money from the blinds. Of course if the table is doing it you might make up your losses from other positions by it affecting your opponents much worse than you.

Does anyone think button-straddling is +EV?

I think it can be, depending in the game. You can play just about any hand profitably from the button, so it's good to have bigger pots in position.

The problem I have with button straddling is that it makes it less likely the blinds will come along, and if you cut 100BB stacks in half you aren't doing yourself any favors if you have a post flop edge.

I play in games where you can straddle the btn for any amount! lol I usually only staddle the btn if at least 5 of the stacks at the table are 400bb's or more. Why would I want to cut my edge in half if the players only have 150-200 bb's then I'm effectively shortening the stacks and reducing my deep stack edge over everyone else. From my experience it doesn't really increase the action if anything people tend to tighten up a lil bit. You want to increase action to a game then introduce an Ante...

About the only time I straddle is when I am sitting at a table at 4 am with a bunch of folks who, like me, have probably been there for 12 hours. When the table goes into zombie mode, i will throw in a straddle or two to try to break the trance.

This. It sucks being in the blinds as it is; why the hell would I want to pay even more without seeing my cards, for the 'right' play the entire hand OOP?

I -love- it when the rest of the table straddles tho, because the table plays bigger when I pick up a hand.