Straddle in $5/$10 game

it becomes really player dependent. if the straddle and BB are both weak and under defend this is a great spot to steal effectively 3BB at a high frequency. I'm defaulting to opening overly aggressive in this spot and just testing it to see if we get folds a lot, especially if the players look like players who would fold a lot.

Hmmm...that makes a lot of sense to "play the players" and go exploitatively.

I can see that being the best play after you've gotten to know the opponents, but what if you just sat down and know very little about the players? I'm curious statistically what the right approach would be from that angle as well.

Thanks for the response!

You're basically asking, "How do I play and win at higher stakes when there is little limping and a lot of open-raising and 3-betting?

Or in other words, "How do I become good enough to beat 95% of all poker players?"

I usually put my sb opening range in a straddle game like my cutoff opening range in a 2 blind game.

Also you should open bigger like 3-4x

There is a world of difference between unstraddled and straddled games and quite a bit of nuance. Most pros tend to be understudied in those differences and there are huge edges to be had if you study.

sb open raise range should be tighter than btn open in a 3 blind game, and you could consider going larger than normal since you are out of position. At 5/10/20 I am usually opening 50 from button and earlier but 60 from sb and bb. But if the players left to act are more passive weak I might open 60 or even more from the btn or earlier.

Here is the btn open range for 6 max with 2bb straddle with a 0.1bb ante from each player and 5% rake with 0.1bb rake cap (postflop rake only). 150 straddles deep opening to 5 bb (2.5 straddles).
Note these conditions aren't common for live play, but they are probably close to an unraked game opening:

Here is the opening range from the SB opening to 6.5bb (3.25 straddles):

Also, as sb in a straddled game facing an open should have more of a 3bet or fold response than in an unstraddled game, especially if the game is raked. Exception would be when a weak player opened or cold called an open and the BB and straddle are weaker passive players, we might exploitatively flat, basically hoping to flop sets or hit other nutted hands and win a huge pot from a weaker player.

If you are a winning player putting in a good amount of volume or you just love studying the game, the cash subscription for GTO Wizard comes with solutions for 6 max straddle + ante games which are pretty close to unraked live straddle games up to 200 straddles deep. A step further would be getting a subscription to holdem resources where you can do custom solves for single straddles double straddle, and button straddle games at different stack depths and rake structure. Very useful for preflop nodelocking as well. The nodelocking is very useful in particular because people don't 3bet like a solver, and you can come up with very good responses for their actual 3bet ranges to exploit them.

Every position from the button and before plays a bit tighter in a straddled game than an unstraddled game. SB plays considerably tighter than SB unstraddled and even tighter than the button. BB can do a surprising amount of cold calling still vs 2.5x and 3x opening. For example, in the above sim, KJo is pure continuing in bb vs a 5bb btn open at 100- 200 straddles, and QJo is mainly continuing as well. A lot of pros might that QJo cold calling bb in straddle might be too loose when it is actually fine.

Finally, straddle is like BB on steroids and gets to continue looser than bb normally.
Straddle 3bets very merged against btn and earler (best pairs, AKo, and suited high cards + mixing with suited connectors/higher gappers/suited wheel aces). Here is straddle response vs 5bb button open at 150 straddles:

Straddle is very polar against sb and bb (best pairs and suited high cards, mixing with suited connectors, some suited Ax, and mixing with worst offsuit garbage with one high card. Here is straddle response vs sb open at 150 straddles:

Of course all sorts of exploitative adjustments should be made, and these ranges should tighten up quite a bit vs larger open sizes, but it is good to understand the baseline. Even a lot of good players that mainly study non-straddled charts tend to be less technically sound in straddled games in the SB through straddle. The most common mistakes I see are calling too much from SB, playing too tight in the BB, mainly too tight in straddle but occasionally too loose, and waaaay too linear 3bet range from bb and straddle. IE sb vs straddle, people 3bet AQo, KQo, AJo way too much and they don't 3b hands like Q8o, J8o, or 54s nearly enough (if ever). A fair amount of pros think people that don't 3b AQo from the straddle vs sb are tight and bad, but actually their 3b range is too nitty and their calling range from the straddle has too much garbage and not enough good hands. The response to their imbalanced 3bet range is to call their 3bets less, fold more, and 4bet more. Not only do pros tend to 3b too linearly from the straddle, but they then call 3bets of linear 3betting pros way too wide because they are calling closer to what they should be calling if straddle was 3betting more polar, when in fact straddle is 3betting more linear.

I appreciate everyone's feedback...all of it is helpful.

Mlark, your write-up was EXACTLY what I was looking for and it makes complete sense. Titrating it down to the "...straddle is like BB on steroids and gets to continue looser than bb normally" is a great analogy. And you answered the question of what is the more dominating factor about the SB...does the range widen as it does when it's SB vs. BB when there is no straddle or does it tighten because you're out of position for the rest of the hand? Makes more sense to realize that the SB needs to tighten the range, particularly since the straddle has yet to act and will be in position going forward.

This was a monster help. I am consistently crushing it at lower stakes (brought home $900 last night after 8 hours), but I feel this tip alone will make a huge difference when I return again to $5/$10.