Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapini
I see a whole lot of baseless assertions here. It seems to me that if non-straddlers were gaining such a huge advantage, no one would straddle.
Knowing that placing add'l money in the pot preflop UTG is -EV, I still often choose to straddle despite knowing I'm giving up an advantage in that hand. I do it because I know that straddling increases action and out of respect/fairness to the others that are straddling with the goal of making the game better. When enough freeriders refuse to straddle, yet benefit from others' straddling, it makes the straddlers re-think whether they want to subsidize the non-straddlers. When that happens, the action dies down and the game is sometimes not even worth playing.
To keep both parties happy, we are suggesting an auto-straddle table in addition to offering the regular two-blind structure table. That way, the non-straddlers can play in their game without being peer pressured to straddle, and the rest of us straddlers can play at the auto-straddle table. Not sure why anyone would be opposed to offering both types of tables, since they aren't being forced to play in this auto-straddle game.