"Straddler" Adjustment Decision

You go to your favorite casino and the board welcomes and you puts you on the list for yor favorite game. While you are waiting, there is an opening at a traditionaly loose passive 6-12 game, and you take a seat. You sit back and watch the game play with lots of callers and little raising and you say to yourself "it's just a matter of time until I get the cards and cash in on this game." Then the seat to your immediate left opens and Peter Pottmaker takes it. (Peter never saw a pot he couldn't jam.) The button moves and you are going to be in the big blind when Peter yells "straddle". Your formerly loose table collapses and the hand is folded up to you. You look at your cards and find that you have two unsuited distant baby cards. (Which have only a 20 to 1 chance of floping a hand of two pair or better.) Since you know Peter has position on you, and that if you call you will be heads up, and that Peter will jam you ( with whatever he flop), and that your "dog" hand "just won't hunt", you smile and toss in your cards and let Peter have the blind. Now Peter announces to the table that he "is always going to straddle every hand he can for the rest of the day." You know Peter and you know that he will do just what he claimed. Since Peter can only straddle when you are in the big blind, you know that for you to play the big blind it will always cost you a double bet. And that while the other players at the table will often get to play their hands for just the price of their big blind against many callers, you will always have to pay a double price if you want to play your big blind, and if you do you will always have decreased implied odds, to play your big blind hands, since Peter's straddle decreases the number of callers if you play your big blind. You kindly offer to trade seats with Peter ,putting him on your right? But Peter says "to hell with that, I know you , and you would only play hands which were stong enough to raise my straddles and no one elce would play and eventualy you would crush me" Since Peter refuses to accept your kind offer, what adjustments or changes would you make?

#1. Ask for the first available seat change.


#2. When it is your BB stand up, walk around and post behind the button until your seat change comes or he stops.

If you avoid your BB, your saying to the whole table,"I'm not here to gamble and have any fun. Poker is serious business for me." Not a good message to convey.


Ask for a seat change, but play as normal. Being bet out of the BB is not the worst situation. Sure it's nice to get a free play if you play great post flop, but you're not really losing much folding either.

yer all yella!!! come on. a straddle is one of the worst plays in poker. so why do we all have this misconception that UTG can have decent hands sometimes, but that the BB will always have flat out buttcheese? raise him back!! don't let him have your blind every time. half of your hands are going to break even against any random hand at worst. (my math is not great here, but assume a scale of best to worst. the top half will be stronger than the bottom half of the hands preflop.) if you play well postflop (and if peter is such a potjammer, then you probably do), you can whup the S### out of him heads up and make him wish he never tried to take advantage of you. this will obviously increase your fluctuation. however, you must remember that playing well postflop means folding when it is correct. basically its like playing in a heads up game. once a round you get to have blinds at double the limits you are currently playing but heads up. you are out of position, but you can make up for that by ramming and jamming with peter when you have the goods, calling when you think you have him beat but aren't quite sure, and folding when you know you won't win the hand from the beginning. and that isn't always to say you should play every big blind hand against this guy. you came to play poker, not passive, throw-away-my-big blind-every-round-because-im-a-wuss-poker. show him who's boss.