I recently learned to love the UTG straddle in a full ring game, it makes people play 1-crazy, and 2-even worse than usual. Here’s a great example: me and the other straddle instigator (TAG and tough when sober, LAG and tough when drinking, he’s the latter at this early hour in the morning) agree that if it’s folded to one of us on the others straddle then he will blind raise. We’re each in the cutoff for the others straddle, so this is hardly a stretch, my raising range is probably around 65% under these circumstances, and his is already 100%.

My straddle, folds to the cutoff who blind raises, button and SB fold, and BB calls…

Ever since then I try to get a round of straddles going whenever I can

Surprised JS hasn't yet presented you with an opportunity of a life time!

Yah, sure. Great read on my understanding of poker. Do you even play middle limit ever?

Still don't think the button makes it a straddle. I've played it both ways now. I won straddling, and lost not straddling, but it proves nothing. I don't think you can recooperate the blind with proper play. But, I'd have higher ev and lower variance at a normal game, so pass, especially tired.

In a standard game of poker, when everyone but the small and big blind has folded, the big blind has the advantage before any action takes place, so why should a game with three blinds be any different?

Come on. Most people can see that both situations are +EV. But is button straddling more +EV than not straddling? That's not so easy to decipher, and no one is making any arguments or reasoning as to why. LOL is right to be skeptical.

If that was the case he wouldn't have described straddling as a horrible mistake, which is what started argument to begin with

Say you have a total trash hand, would you rather raise w it or fold against solid opponents otb? Would you rather play game A where you straddle, or game B where you do not straddle. Netwise, game B looks better than game A for the trash hands, and that's a large percentage of hands, so net ev, game B > game A. With high variance, I prefer to read. Maybe poker or stocks, long term stuff. I'd probably pass on a lot of heads up to answer DD's question if I didn't have a large edge.

I think the reasoning is completely trivial but here goes: the best player in the game (3-handed or 9-handed) increases his EV when there's more money in the pot and when the optimal strategy changes due to changes in the game structure. Adjustments to strategy 9-handed with straddle aren't too complicated but nonetheless as my example a few posts ago showed many people don't make them. 3-handed is rare enough for live games that most players won't play optimally, throw in the straddle and the situation is even better (more +EV) for the best player in the game.

The room is dead. It's you and a big fish are the only ones there, and the fish offers to play you HU and give you button every hand, but you have to agree straddle every hand.

Are you too tired for that offer?

I think I play. I am really unsure about it, so I might pass. The room's alive tomorrow unless it's the holidays.

i played hu once with straddles allowed. and yes, even the complete fish wasn't a big enough ****** to pass on his straddle.

It'd kind've remind me of jack pool, too confusing for me, so I'd pass or counter with Pineapple or something. Have hardly touched the game but rather play that.

I'm thinking a drinking game personally. Drinjs and crazy pinneaple or some other hypermodern game.

If you're not good at 3 handed poker, then I can totally get behind the decision to play something else.

I'm a compulsive gamestarter, so I feel right at home in a 3 handed game.

Just remembered I didn't answer your question:

I've played a little 20/40 live, more 10/20 though. Most of my play is online however, where I've played a few hands as high as 20/40, but mostly between 1-2 and 3-6.

Personally I play a lot of three handed poker at 20/40 as the game is frequently short. Straddling is a bad move in this game, imho. HU if you always have the button, I am not sure if you have an edge. I think you would.

I am weary of prop bets, because there is a lot of psychology behind them. You will very rarely be offered a favorable prop bet unless you are an expert at sports betting. So, I think you want to be the one offering, hence a game of drunken crazy pinneapple where I think I'd still do as well as someone else who hasn't played it either and is drinking. Worst case is you lose a learn about crazy pinneapple.

Who's the big winner then? If three players post blinds, then that is ev that's gonna get distributed to the players. If not the straddler, then who does the straddle benefit? Is it a mix of the small blind and big blind each earning a fraction of the straddle? Or is it the big blind exclusively taking a piece of the straddle? Surely, the small blind can't be the big winner, so you must think that the big blind is the big winner.

So please explain how the big blind is going to win a fraction of the straddle and or small blind, despite being out of position to the straddler.

Posting dead money, even IP, is bad.
Gaining last action PF is good.

No one has given any reasoning why EV of gaining last action > EV lost by posting dead money.
Why should LOL defend his view but not others.

I've only made 2 claims: (1) straddling 3 handed is not a massive mistake (2) I think I can profitably straddle 3 handed if he wants to play....

Which view do I need to defend? The first should be obvious, and the second one can only be proven by playing

Yes phunkphish, last action is what makes straddling profitable. If we couldn't win bets postflop, then it would be unprofitable.

I predict that nobody will be proving anybody wrong in this case. All we can do is speculate. I'm glad he answered my question here though:

Ok we can agree to disagree here.

The idea that "we're going to be folding a lot of hands" playing OTB in a 3h game is the questionable statement. How many hands do we fold vs. <random> and <random>? Sure, we can cherry pick a bottom 5% hand and ruminate on how terrible it is to have to play it. However, the mirrored top 5% hand benefits greatly. IIRC, we started with "the variance in this game will be huge" stuff.

What's profitable to open on the button 3 handed? Now, given a bloated pot and last action on all 4 streets, how many more hands are profitable? Once we guess what % of hands we can open for pure profit, we have a starting point. If that number is 35%, then we're opening an additional 65% of unprofitable hands. That sounds like a disaster. If someone has a good answer to this piece, it will go a long ways towards establishing how much the button straddle costs. We can then try to figure out the benefit.

look at it from bb's perspective. how many hands will you continue with in bb vs a straddle of 100% as opposed to a regular open with 50-60%? do you call and open yourself up to a 3bet? or do you raise and open yourself up to a 4bet? using either balanced strategy of calling or raising, you are still subject to extremely wide 3bets and 4bets by the straddler.

It's trivially easy to prove whether straddling the button is profitable three handed.

To do it, answer this question. Again the room is empty, it's just you and a big fish, and again the big fish offers to play you heads up. The fish says let's play without the button, and gives you your choice, you can be the small blind or big blind every hand.

What position do you choose? SB out of position, or BB in position, every hand?

True DC, but can we prove that it's more profitable than the sum ev of all of our profitable preflop combinations, minus the sum -ev of our unprofitable preflop combinations, should we be too loose? Also, if we're slightly too tight, then that'll bring up the ev of our playable profitable preflop range on the button, but at the opportunity cost of folding potentially profitable opens on the button.

So first we would have to agree on a preflop range, of which every hand will be profitable, and then we would find our true ev/hand. Then we could compare that net ev for playing the button, which will hopefully be enough to cover the net loss of playing the blinds, compared with the profitability of straddling. Seems like quite the task.

For some reason I'm reminded of something I saw in a well about players making decisions based on the absolute value of their dollars. They were playing 40/80, one guy opens, pro 3 bets, all fold to the opener, he says, "I guess nobody had a $120 hand."

If that's how they're gonna play vs a straddle 3 handed, then I think the straddle becomes even better.

There's probably enough material here for someone to publish an article in a poker mag.

Again, is there anyone here who would prefer to be the SB every hand and not the BB? Is there anyone who values putting in less dead money higher than position in this scenario?

I mean in a game with lots of hands going blind vs blind, does anyone take the seat to OTRs right if the seat on his left is open?