Straddling part 1

Q: I played a no limit hold’em cash game in a casino recently and they allowed the under the gun player to make a pre-flop bet of 2x the bb called a live straddle. Why do some players post this bet and what are some different strategies for playing after you have straddled?

Matt in New Hampshire

A: There are several different kinds of straddle bets you might come across when playing no limit hold’em cash games, depending on the house rules. The general purpose of these bets is to increase the amount of gamble and action in the game, and it is important to understand how they affect the game, whether or not you personally choose to straddle when you are under the gun.

The most common kind of straddle is a 2x the bb live straddle posted by the under the gun player. In a 1-2 game this would be posting a $4 live straddle. The UTG+1 player then acts first in the pre-flop betting round, with the option to call ($4) or raise to any amount. Action continues around until it reaches the UTG player who initially posted the straddle. Because it is a live straddle, the UTG player, rather than the big blind, has last action. If the pot has not yet been raised, the UTG player will often make a substantial raise since there is a decent amount of money in the pot already and no one has shown any strength by raising.

At first glance the straddle seems to be a play with negative expectation. You are effectively raising blind to $4 from UTG, the worst position at the table and one where good players would normally play only quality hands. Whether or not straddling can ever have a positive expectation is subject to debate, and hinges very much on specific player and game conditions, such as how effectively you can steal pots pre-flop or on the flop after straddling, and how much the dynamics of straddling negatively affect other players at the table. Let’s take a look now at different strategies for playing as the straddler.

One of the most common strategies players use after straddling is to raise an extremely wide range of hands. Some players will raise their top 50% or even top 75% of hands if they straddled, there are several callers, and no one has raised. While this may succeed the first few times in picking up the pot, your observant opponents should quickly adjust to your wide raising range with various kinds of traps. If they know you are going to raise almost every straddle, they may limp against you with a hand like 99 or AQ with the intention of re-raising after your straddle raise. If they have a real monster like AA or KK, they may even limp and then just call your straddle raise (assuming the pot is not too multi-way), with the intention of letting you bluff off more chips on the flop and beyond.

Another strategy I see too frequently is players who post the straddle and then almost never raise. For some reason they like the idea of straddling, but they only get the negative expectation part of the deal since they never take down pots through pre-flop and flop aggression, which is pretty much essential for straddling to be at least a break even play. These players can be exploited too by limping in with hands that you otherwise might fold since you know you almost never have to fear a raise from them.

Not surprisingly, another group of players like to raise their straddle only for value, with the hands that they would normally raise limpers with from the blinds (perhaps a range like 77+, AJ+, KQ, KJs). This is a fairly good way to play the straddle, although you have to keep in mind that the field will view your straddle raises with more suspicion and play back at you with a wider range of hands than if you had raised as one of the blinds in an unstraddled pot. As a result, with the smaller pairs especially, you’ll often be in the awkward situation post-flop of having raised out of position, being called in a couple of places, and seeing a couple of over cards to your pair come out.

The last way to play as the straddler is to raise with your usual raising range from the blinds, plus a handful of other hands like small pairs, connectors, suited one and two gappers, and suited aces and kings. One benefit of this strategy is that you are raising more often pre-flop and will pick up more pots right then and there without a fight. Secondly, when you do get called, your continuation bets on the flop are going to be much harder for your opponents to deal with. Unlike any of the three previous strategies, this one gives you a more balanced hand range of monsters (over pairs, sets, straights, flushes), solid made hands (top pair), big draws, and total misses. The variety of hands you could now have presents some real problems for your opponents. Since they know you are raising with a decently wide range you will now tend to get more value from a hand like top pair top kicker when they hold a dominated top pair. They will also have a harder time playing back at you when a ragged flop comes because they know that you have been raising with the small pairs, suited cards and connectors that might have hit these flops hard too.

Next time you play in a cash game that allows straddling, notice which opponents choose to straddle and then note the frequency with which they raise the straddle and any hands they show down after having done so. Try to figure out which of the above strategies they are using and adjust accordingly. Next time, I will say a bit more about playing against a straddle raiser, connect straddling with the concept of Stack to Pot Ratio (SPR) and commitment decisions, and share a hand from one of my recent sessions that illustrates a lot of these straddle dynamics in action.