Quote:
Originally Posted by NickMPK
I agree that the button straddle is only +EV some of the time for the straddler. I think it is basically always severely -EV for the blinds. The button may pick up some of that EV depending on how well players repond, but much of the rest of that EV is gained by non-blind players in the field.
I feel like button straddles are equivalent to something like a rule that says that seat 2 has the "option" to force seat 3 to given $10 off his stack to seat 4. If 2 exercises the option, that seems unfair to seat 3. Just because seat 3 may later have the option for force seat 4 to give money to seat 5 doesn't make it fair to seat 3. It would only be fair to seat 3 if seat 1 happens to exercise his option to force seat 2 to pay seat 3, something that seat 3 has no control over absent overt collusion.
And FWIW, trying to convince another player to straddle strikes me as a violation of OPTAH.
The way the MS straddle works @ MGMNH is the button has priority to straddle, then the cutoff, then the hijack, etc., all the way to UTG. So any player can be rewarded for voluntarily putting out the straddle if no one with priority has straddled already.
I think if we're going to discuss this issue further, we should make a new thread for it in the main forum. I'd still like to see you disprove that UTG straddles provide different advantages and disadvantages to players depending on whether the person to your left straddles, but I understand if you don't want to put in the effort.
My last and most important point on the issue is this: the MS straddle is a market differentiator for MGMNH. We'll know in a couple months which format the players prefer simply by having different options available to us as players.