So I played in a live game 2 nights ago. $1/$3 with a 400$ buy in (133bb).

At least 50% of the pots were straddled, most to $6 bucks, but frequently to higher than that as well. (Horseshoe Casino, Baltimore).

I'm trying to figure out how this impacts my strategy. I'm curious for your input, please.

1. The guy to my left always straddled my big blind to $6 dollars. It just felt kind of annoying. What I understand the impact to be is he now is last to act preflop, the minimum to limp in is $6 (2bb) and the min raise is 1bb+ the straddle ($9) (3bb). BTW, this guy was loose and therefore when he straddled he was frequently playing.

2. There was a player who always straddled the button for $11 dollars (pot size). I can't remember button straddles from live play pre-covid so maybe this is new, also usually the straddle is 2x. (I am going to call the casino today and ask about the rules. I can't find anything online about their straddle rules).

This guy actually seemed to get a benefit from this straddle in that many times it limped to him with 1 or 2 players calling $11. (loose game), Many times it folded around to him and when someone had an actual hand they had top bet 10-15bb to raise appropriately.

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All of this impacted the game. It added to the general looseness and money splashing around and it required bigger raises creating lower SPR's on the flop.
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I was tempted to just raise big every time the guy straddled the button. He's putting $11 dollars out there with 2 random cards, I doubt he could defend that frequently. But A) he was loose so he just might and then where does that leave me? Out of position with 2 random cards of my own in a huge pot. B) there were 3 players between me and him and they may actually have a hand.

So does this leave me just waiting for monsters? That's no fun. Or calling pot sized with mediocre hands, out of position? That's bad poker.

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With regard to the UTG straddler, why do people do this? What is the advantage to them? Instead of paying $3 dollars per round to play hands in terrible position, they are now paying $9 dollars per round to play hands in terrible position. Seems like a bad idea.

From my perspective, it robs me of my ability to get a big-blind free play every now and then, but otherwise, if it is raised when it gets to me in the bb I'm probably not playing much differently. if there are 2 or 3 $6 dollar limpers, I may throw in another $3 dollars.

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How do you deal with this? It changes the character of the game somewhat.

I mean the UTG guy pays $4 a round to play in bad position and now with the straddle he is paying $10 dollars per round to play in bad position.

Straddling, especially UTG, is good for the game and I always straddle at my first opportunity to do so. If other players straddle, I’ll keep it up as well.

I will leave it to others to talk about strategy but I can tell you that the rule at Horseshoe Baltimore is (or at least was the last time I played there) that you can straddle from any position for up to 5 times the big blind. And if multiple players want to straddle, priority goes to the player closest to the button.

Please do a search ITF for straddle/straddling. There are lots of threads on the subject.

Bottom line is that there is no theoretical advantage to straddling, but that it can be "good for the game" to the point where the -EV in the actual hand is offset by the overall +EV of the loose/splashy game. Button straddles are less bad for the straddler than UTG ones, and some argue that even though they are bad in theory, that people react so poorly to them that they can be positive in practice. Personally, I'd rather have deeper effective stacks, especially when in position, so I'm against it unless the stacks are really deep and/or it would kill a good gambooly image/table to refrain.

It is good for loose aggressive players who can tolerate variance and have good bankrolling.

It is not good for conservative recreational players who only show up with 1 buy in, + some to top off a little. Which is basically how it was for me 2 nights ago. I am trying to figure out how to modify my strategy if it is going to be constantly straddled like this. A) Bring more money. B) Should I screw down and play tighter, or open up and play wider? Should I call more and raise less or the opposite?

The min-straddle changes a $1/$3 game with $400 max buy in from a pre-flop SPR of 100 and turns it into a 3-blind game of 1$/3$/6$ blinds with a pre-flop SPR of 40. Much different.

A "normal" 3x raise called only by the button creates a pot of $13 and an SPR of 30 on the flop without the straddle. Plenty of room to play poker.

With a $6 dollar straddle, and an $18 dollar raise and only the button calling, the pot is $46 and the SPR is 8.

This is not to mention the freaking $11 dollar button straddle. Ugh.

so what your saying is you came to gamble with no money to actually gamble.

sounds like a great game to play TAG


BUT TAG doesn't feed ones fix(action junkie)

I'm sure there are articles and threads about straddles and strategy in general, but my advice to you is to learn by experience. Straddles are pretty much a part of every live game in the country and depending on the straddler, stack sizes and your position, can drastically deviate any given hand.

Whatever you can do to stay comfortable and keep your variance down while you learn, just do it. Maybe buy in for the minimum and go TAG. Change seats if you feel you're being exploited in BB vs straddle situations. Good luck!

Lot's of good advice and suggestions for additional resources already given. However the crux of your dilemma is distilled below.

All poker players face this same dilemma not matter what the circumstances are. Winning poker is not exciting poker. Long term winners treat it like a job. Phil Ivey once said that if he believed the highest +EV strategy in a game was to play just AA, he would play only AA. You become like the house. You don't care who wins or loses an individual hand. You just know in the long run you will win.

The paradox of poker is that the pool of players are initially drawn to it because of the gambling aspect. TV doesn't show hands where someone flops TP and everyone folds who can't beat that. They show the hands where thousands to millions of dollars are on the line or someone sucks out on a hand they shouldn't have been in with. NLHE is the most popular form of poker because everyone can get that thrill of trying to win a big hand.

So you have to decide: Do I want to win or do I want to have fun?

I know some are thinking, "wait a minute Venice, can't I have have some fun and still be a winner, even though I know I won't be a crusher?" For small stakes players, the margin between a losing player and winning player is narrow. In low stakes, the rake is so high I believe that only about 20% of players in a room are long term winners. In a $5+2 rake game, the house is pulling at least $150/hour. The top winner in the game is probably taking $30/hr in a 1/3 game. Most of us have so many leaks in our game already that we can drop into the loser category by adding just one or two more per hour. We don't have the margin to make additional mistakes for fun.

Good luck with your decision. One solution I have is that I have work game that I participate in for fun. I don't play to make money and the stakes are low. At the poker room, I'm playing to win.

Yes it was kind of a spontanaeous swing by the casino. First time I played live since Covid. It felt great. I had a good time, but I didn’t put any thought into how much money to bring with, in fact I didn’t bring any money, just my debit card. I’m kind of asking for strategies. You are 1 vote for just playing super tight. Ok. Thanks. I was hoping there might be other exploits.

A couple thoughts that might not be all that relevant to you individually.

1. I've found the best way to treat straddles is to just consider them a big blind and you're playing the next level up. So sitting 200bb's deep in a 5/10 game becomes 100bb's deep in a (5) 10/20 game, then play how you would normally play with similar ranges.

2. A lot of people straddle to try to loosen up the table, but I think a better way to create a more action oriented table is to just play more aggressively. 3bet a little wider, bluff a bit more, etc. Kinda the poker version of the old "Be the change you want to see in the world" axiom.

Step 1 is to figure out how the other players are adjusting to the straddle.

Do you see much open raising over the UTG straddle or are most players just limping the straddle?

Straddles don’t always increase the size of the game as you’d expect because players get scared of the size of the game and won’t raise with premium hands that they’d normally open, like KQs,AQ, TT. These hands get thrown into a limping range with a straddle in play. They also might fold hands that they’d normally limp in an unstraddled game.

Once you figure out what types of hands your opponents are playing, you’ll understand what hands to put in your raising range. Facing limps in position, you probably want to raise with strong value, like AQ+, AJs, KQs,TT+. Once you get a feel for the table, and see the types of hands they’re limping, you can consider raising more borderline hands like 99,ATs, AJ, etc.

Yes, exactly right, a 6$ straddle basically makes your stack half as effective so in my game which has a $400 max buy in and 1$/3$ blinds, we are playing with 133bb when fully stacked. When the UTG puts in a $6 dollar (2bb) straddle, we are basically playing 1$/3$/6$ poker with 66bb stacks. This leads to lowish SPR's on the flop. It is twice as bad when the button straddles for $11bb, as was happening frequently. The poker becomes top-pair, 1 street poker.

The game definitely became more passive. People would limp-call versus the straddles. So the pots were multiway and bloated. A 2bb limp doesn't seem so bad if I am in LP and there are 2 limpers already, plus the blinds and the straddle, I'm getting 3.75-1. If I am in the bb and the utg straddles for 2bb and we get 2 limpers, I'm getting 7.5-1. I can play all sorts of trash, but then I've got to worry about the loose straddler popping it up when there are just a couple of limpers, or of course, when I am playing trash like 95o from worst possible position 4 way, it isn't going to get me very far, very often.

Same thing with the $11 button straddle only worse, because limpers tighten their limping range, so you are against better hands, and the button is much more likely to pop it up when it comes to him only limped and the raise will be much bigger. Even if we get to the flop with 4 limpers, the pot will be $44 +/- and we are probably folding to most reasonable bets without some kind of legit hand and the button knows all this so the button is just hoping for some bluffing opportunities on the big-pot flop.

The $6 dollar straddle makes it medium stack poker, which is the worst. I'd rather play low SPR or high SPR. A normal 3x raise gives us an SPR of 9. This is a terrible spot.

The $11 straddle makes it a small stack game. A normal 3x raise gives us a flop SPR of 5, which makes it easier to get all in with top pair. So against this, I think I will raise pot size or more with any top pair hand, looking to get all in if I hit the flop. That is TT +, AK,AQ,AJ,KQ. Taking down the $11 dollar straddle and a couple of limps and the blinds would be a fine result.

We could play the same way versus the $6 dollar straddle by making it a 5x open-raise. A raise to $30 versus the 6$ straddle gives us an SPR of 5 also.

But this isn't really poker, as I like to think about it. It takes a lot of the skill out of the game, makes it more difficult to be patient and wait around for good situations because we aren't going to be drawing and making full houses and straights and flushes. too expensive. And we can't play a lot of drawing hands, like small pairs and small Axs and small suited connectors and 1 gappers because we aren't getting the right implied odds and we can't pay to draw because the pot is too big.

So my opinion is that straddles are terrible for the game. Unless you want it to be like late stages of a tournament where it is 1 bet and then all in or fold on the flop. Or unless you want the pots to all be multiway and limped.

And multiway limped-straddled pots suck because it takes a real made hand to win those pots. The best hand wins those pots, not the best player. If you know what I mean. The little old lady who calls $5 from the small blind with A4o and calls a flop bet against my better Ace hand, she ends up winning the pot when she makes her wheel straight on the turn even though she played it passively the whole time and probably made incorrect decisions on both streets.

Without the straddle are players typically opening to $10? Where I play most people open to $15 at 1/3. Now with a $6 straddle, the opens are to $20. Not so different for my games.

With shorter SPR you can still play a 3street game by sizing your cbet much smaller. Default to the 1/4 or 1/3 size versus the 1/2+ size that is common in live poker.

This thread is timely for me, as a noob recreational player.

The first time I played live in years, the guy two to my right button-straddled every single opportunity, which meant whenever I was on the BB, I was second to act having to decide whether to defend with 7 guys to act behind, with the best case scenario being still OOP post-flop.

I had no idea how to play it and folded pretty much everything except suited broadway or better.

That is the correct response, imo. And one of the reasons I don't like button straddling is that it often makes Vs correctly fold their cheese pre, instead of playing it OOP to us.

This is the problem I have in my local room too. The 2/5 game is only a $500 buyin and the old regs always bully for the UTG straddle to make it a 2/5/10, 50bb game.

I personally think they have killed the room doing this. There are often six 1/3 tables and only one 2/5 table with the same people on it. The jump from 1/3 to 2/5 is not that great ($300-$500), and people often open $15 and sometimes $20 pre at 1/3 so it wouldn't be much different. But because they play 2/5/10 opening sizes are more like $30/$35 so it seems like a huge game for 1/3 players and nobody wants to move up.

I often don't straddle to keep it a 2/5 100bb game. The old boys get shitty but eventually stop straddling because they think I have an advantage by not straddling. In my experience when these old toxic players aren't there more 1/3 players do try 2/5 and it is friendly and fun. But when these guys are there they make fun of me whenever I loose allins because of my bad karma for not straddling. I try to not let it get to me but still makes for an unnecessarily toxic environment.

My choices are to play 1/3 for small passive pots or in this 2/5/10 game. I usually opt for the 2/5 because I want to play bigger and tighten up. Just play it as a 50bb game and fold a lot more pre. It is more boring but I think more profitable.

Basically what V said regarding "winning poker is boring poker" / "do I want to win or do I want to have fun".

My 1/3 NL game plays very similar it that it allows both UTG and Button $6 straddles plus only allows a $400 maximum BI (noting that lottsa stacks are a lot less than this in the early goings of games due to people BIing for much less). Basically, just play rock tight OOP, and only play speculative hands in LP in cheap pots. The majority of your opponents won't find that strategy very fun / have the willpower to do that, and so that's where you make your money.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah that would annoy the **** out of me too. People already tend to bet bigger than optimal in most scenarios so turning a 100bb game into a 50bb game with a "mandatory" straddle just sounds like a great way to remove a lot of very fun and profitable situations from the game.

Maybe you should learn how to play in a 50bb three-blind game. It's not that difficult.

One of the key skills in poker is not paying off other players. You want to master that before worrying that the game isn't allowing to play what you define as "poker.' I'm personally thrilled when I see someone open with A4o pf, call a flop bet with a gutshot when I have TP. I'm happy for them when they hit, bet and let me fold. I know it is going to be a good session.

More multiway limped pots sounds like a good table to me.

Yes if you arent bankrolled for the extra blind then it can feel intimidating, but it definitely sounds like it makes your game more profitable. Just play tighter and wait for strong hands and punish them.

This thread has been interesting to me since my 1/3 game has turned into a straddle fest. The max buy-in is $500 and more younger players are buying in for the full 500 and constantly button straddling. The game becomes more like 2/5 in terms of the money in play and frankly it makes me very uncomfortable. My choices seem to be to play for more than I want, or not play at all. Probably time to totally nit-it-up.