Straddling 4 and 5 handed.

[BigEndian]

Most everyone knows about the enormous advantage of straddling otb 3-way. I was playing in a game a week ago that was 5-handed and had two semi-tight players on my left. I didn't think to straddle during the game, but afterward the question occured to me:

How tight would the two seats to my left have to be before straddling was profitable?

And now that I think more, most people who play badly short-handed give up on pots too much. So it may not even require super-tight players. If it's a table that you're pushing around (frequent occurance in SH live play), I can still see value.

Anyhow, some random thoughts out of my head from this past week.

- Jim

[admiralfluff]

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Most everyone knows about the enormous advantage of straddling otb 3-way.

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This is actually news to me. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Would you mind elaborating a bit? Is it always correct, regardless of opponent types?

[milesdyson]

fluff,

I was going to post the same thing, but I think it has to only be at a live game where people play too passively. If you have 3 similar aggressive players, I think it would be -EV to straddle there.

[Victor]

miles, it mostly has to do with acting last on every round. its my understanding that even with aggro players it would be a good play.

[milesdyson]

Seems weird. Aren't you accomplishing almost the same thing by raising preflop? You're already acting last every postflop round, so I guess I don't understand why you would not want the option of folding the very worst of hands with aggressive blinds who know how to play.

[Victor]

"Aren't you accomplishing almost the same thing by raising preflop?"

no, you dont act last pf.

[milesdyson]

Yeah that's why I said almost the same thing. I can see it being true, though, you'd just have to get used to all the weird ass spots you'd be in.

[vmacosta]

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miles, it mostly has to do with acting last on every round. its my understanding that even with aggro players it would be a good play.

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I've been doing it for a while now, based on advice from old threads, but still can't seem to get the hang of it. Plz help.

[DrSavage]

I dunno, I really don't think straddling 3 handed is optimal. My vpip 3handed on the button is definitely not remotely close to 100 and I don't think having an option to put more money in preflop would outweight all the 92o and 73o hands i would have to play. I've played for about an hour 3handed once straddling every button and the situation where i wanted to reraise prelop didn't come up once and the thought "i really would've preferred folding this garbage instead of straddling" did come up quite a lot.

[vmacosta]

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miles, it mostly has to do with acting last on every round. its my understanding that even with aggro players it would be a good play.

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I've been doing it for a while now, based on advice from old threads, but still can't seem to get the hang of it. Plz help.

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I meant 3-handed, of course. 4handed+ seems ridiculous to me at this point. I wonder if maybe you have to be as good as JA Sucker or JV or whatever before it becomes correct...