[Skleice]

I don't think you can discuss straddle w/o talking about stack size. If you are playing deep then the straddle can benefit the good player who can win bigger pots by outplaying the weak players. However, I play in a home game where a couple donks out of the lot of us play w/ 40-50 bbs in front of them. They always want to straddle cuz they ARE there to gamble. In this case I don't like the staddle because it becomes like a tournament when it's an all in fest. IMO it jacks up the variance factor for the donk and leaves me w/o any play post flop.