Are Straddles good for Small No-Limit Games?

I love straddles -- and button straddles are my favorite. If short-stackers lose because of straddles, there is almost always someone to take their seat. Most short-stackers I know always seem to pull out another $100, regardless.

Straddles drive action and encourage poor play -- what more could you ask for? Usually straddlers are gamblers, and I love having them at the table.

However, FWIW, I don't straddle regularly. I straddles if the table is straddling or to get a little action going.

Wynn actually eliminated straddles from their 5/10 and 10/20 games and replaced it with a big blind ante.

It all depends what stakes we're talking about, stack depth, what the players want, what other tables are available. A winning poker player should always want to increase the effective stakes as long as it doesn't drive away recreational players over the long term and provides it doesn't make the game too big for their bankroll.

I think there are a lot of regional variations what people like. In my town there is usually 1 private game in the cardhouses that is either a 5/10/20 or 10/25/50, and then bunch of 1/2 tables. There is usually one 1/2 table where the 10 or at least the 5 straddle is usually on, but not mandatory. Stacks there are usually 500-2k and it is match the stack. People who don't want to play at that table have a wide array of tables to sit at where stacks are smaller.

As silly as it is, a 2/5 or 5/10 table will just not make.

The most prominent card room in town was acquired by investors from out of town tried to change things by introducing caps to the 1/2 games and disallowing the Texas button straddle. The idea was that then they would also have 1/3, 2/5, 5/10 games that would cater to every stake people wanted to play. While they did grow their business amount the players that like to play capped 1/2, they lost a lot of business to the cardhouse the kept things going the way locals were used to. They went from being clear #1 room for cash games to about even with the next most popular card room. And all of the best action deeper stacked games went to the other cards room.

Plenty of people liked the changes they made, but fair amount didn't like the changes, nor did they like the idea of an outside group telling them they know what they really want. It's a difficult balance.

My guess is most rooms are like mine, where everyone is a reg, so there really isn't no such thing as a "tourist type" random player sitting in the game. I mean, I guess every reg had to start out as a noob, but if poker is a hobby they are interesting in possibly pursuing then I doubt whether having the UTG/Button straddle on sometimes is going to stop them from pursuing their interest.

I don't have a hard opinion on it either way, but overall if some players want to put in money blind then I think that's probably good for the game in general, so that's the way I'd lean.

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The utg straddle seems good for the game, as it's extra dead money out of position but the btn straddle is less clear.

With button straddles I have seen more preflop folding and weak tight play, like limping AQ and TT especially in the blinds, and more cautious play in other positions. But it depends on how the button-straddler plays: do they often try to bully with it? Do they defend loosely?

I don't think people care too much one way or another about the increase in stakes (they can always fold) but it can make the game boring if the response is nitting up

Somewhat related, what would be wrong with going to 3-3 & 5-5 blinds? Speed the game up and give the illusion of a bigger game & more action.

Straddles are fine at the low levels. Gamblers are going to gamble and nits are going to nit. Where I play you can straddle anywhere but the blinds, and you get last action unless thereÂ’s a raise in front of you.

If you want to give low buyin rec types more bang for their buck, bring back LHE, stud & O8. One day someone will explain to me why all the 10-20 15-30 & 20-40 LHE regulars fell in love with 1-3 NL.

This 100%. It doesn’t make any difference at all longterm at the low levels to any player or room.

The straddle in my game encourages people to play more correctly.

I win much more money at non straddling tables.

Twenty years ago, most poker rooms were in "destination" areas. People would travel there, often spending the night. That gave them the leisure of trying new games when they got tired of their usual game. Gambling has completely changed since that time. I live within 20 miles of 3 poker rooms that have 20 total tables going late this afternoon. A new casino with 45 poker tables is being built in that same distance range to open this spring. No one is coming to "vacation" where I live. If someone is bored, they can leave for home quickly. If they were tempted to play, they have had lots of opportunity. Therefore, I don't think banning straddling will have any significant effect in most places.

In a place like Las Vegas, the new players will gravitate to tournaments. There they will get an hour or more of play at a set price. Therefore, I don't think even in destination locations will straddling make much difference. If a poker room manager thought banning it would bring in more people, they could try it. I suspect that there wouldn't be enough people that would want to stay with it, and would gravitate to the regular tables, thereby leaving the no straddle tables empty.

People who straddle and especially button straddle fancy themselves as gamblers and/or sophisticated players. Since players who actually know how to exploit a button straddle properly are at low stakes as rare as unicorns, I don't see it as a problem. It is actually a quick way to identify how they will play and exploit them.

Interesting. I've never encountered that. Should be easy to adjust and play well against them.

i think they're fairly bad for the game. people play much tighter and are obviously uncomfortable with them (which makes sense, they signed up to play a smaller game). it mostly seems to be regs that aggressively push for straddles because they (correctly) think it benefits them at the expense of recs. i also think the way people aggressively demand other people to straddle is a huge net negative for poker overall. it is what it is though

If you go back a few years, Wynn used to have a button straddle that they eliminated from all their games. And correctly so in my opinion.

I have trouble with this statement. If you make the recreational players lose at a faster rate and upset the balance of luck and skill, I question if they'll lose as much in the long run, since they'll quit playing as they otherwise would. Poker is a game based on probability theory and probability theory can be counter intuitive to those who aren't use to working with it. Specifically, in this example, if you are able to do something that may improve how much the best players will make, they'll make less.

The problem with this statement, and I don't question it being accurate, is what will be the situation a year from now? I suspect that the poker room doing things the old way won't be in as good of shape as they currently are.

Okay

If everyone is a reg, and there's little difference in the skill level of the players, then everyone should slowly lose due to the rake. And if this is the case, it'll be difficult for the poker room to develop the core of regular players who will help start games and keep them going. I believe an example of this are the small limit hold 'em games in Las Vegas which are now few in number.

I agree that the button straddle will often tighten the game and reduce action. And, is this something that the poker room wants?

In my opinion, one of the things that has happened is that the rakes have gotten too high for low stakes limit hold 'em. Thus, there is essentially no one who wins money in these games (over the long run) which means that players don't "graduate" and try the larger stakes. This is one of the things, again in my opinion, that has choked off games like $10-$20 limit hold 'em and above. See my Cardrooms book for rake recommendations for small limit hold 'em games.

It's not that straddles bring in more people or less people. The question is whether they are detrimental to the long-term health of the game. And, very few regular players think in these terms.

It probably does in the short-run. But if it damages the game in the long-run, then that's not good for the regulars or the poker room.

I agree that this can sometimes be a problem

It is my contention that in most cases a button straddle leads to the blinds playing Tighter.

Which is exactly what you do not want at a low stakes NL poker table.

how does one exploit a btn strdl?

People who button straddle often like to think of themselves as action players. When you raise them, they are going to play a weaker range than normal to "defend" their straddle.

This is a non-sequitur. Clearly the vast majority of poker rooms around the country have a reliable, self-replacing player base, and people still want to play live poker even though most players are net losers.

Vegas poker is not a representative sample of a typical live poker ecosystem.

Post-grunch: I see now that the prompt was meant to be around what’s good for the marketability of the game.

I think everyone here should be pretty humble in approaching that question as answering it requires data and expertise so far outside of anything we study in the context of poker.

So long as we’re throwing anecdata and unfounded reckons out there, I think the Mississippi straddle both:

A) Is a liability to have both because it feels arbitrary and confusing for the action to start in different places each hand, and it creates highly differential gaming experiences both from table to table and seat to seat at that table. Anyone can table change in theory, but I think a new recreational player would see standing up and going to the floor manager to change his table as somewhat akin to sending a meal back at a restaurant, both in terms of how pleasant it is and on how poorly it reflects on their experience. It allows someone to assert themselves as the main character at the table if someone’s straddling often, which probably isn’t a great experience for a casual gamer. I think it can feel (for lack of a better word) undemocratic and unfair and disorienting for casual gamers.

B) Is not a big liability to get rid of. The various casinos in my area have changed their straddle rules between traditional straddles and button straddles and Mississippi straddles and I have never seen anyone get genuinely upset about a room changing to traditional straddles in the same way I don’t think anyone holds it against a room for not allowing a live restraddle.

A lot of words to say not much, which is: it seems like a plausible hypothesis to me that the Mississippi straddle *could* hurt the marketability of games and it seems like a stretch to me to say that changing it to a traditional straddle would hurt a game. But those are just my priors. I put almost zero weight on them in the absence of data or at least expertise.

If you walk into a large poker room (with a lot of business) and just look at the seated players, most of them will be winners. There's a difference between someone who plays 1,000 hours per year versus someone who plays a small amount.

While it's a different issue from this thread's topic, poker rooms, to be successful. need to develop a core of regular players who'll help to start games and keep games going. By the way, the same is true in the pit except that now the regular player who helps to start games and keep games going is the casino.

I agree that in the short run this is good. But if it means that these people don't enjoy playing and thus don't come back, it's not good in the long-run for the poker room or the regular players.