The new trend at my casino

[Brom]

I voted yes, but I have no idea who you're talking about. Include a name here.

[mosta]

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most straddles in live games occur UTG, with the straddle having last option.

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FYP

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he's probably thinking of NL.

[felson]

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The antes have gotten larger in relation to the future betting. Therefore, you should play looser.

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This should only apply in the hands where you actually have posted an ante -- your blinds and straddle.

HPAFP recommends playing tighter in straddled pots.

[obi---one]

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its awesome.

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What do you think of the one guy who says he won't straddle?

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He's a sorry nit

[elindauer]

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(playing looser) should only apply in the hands where you actually have posted an ante -- your blinds and straddle.

HPAFP recommends playing tighter in straddled pots.

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Clearly you should be much looser from the blinds. As far as HPFAP's claim that you should play tight facing a straddle, well, the logic given is not convincing. I certainly agree that you can play tight and win, provided you are not forced to straddle yourself.

In this game though, you are forced to straddle, so I'll need more than DS's assertion that tight is right outside the blinds to be convinced.

my 2 cents.
eric

[felson]

I'm not going to try to defend David's argument as I think he may have assumed that you are not also posting a straddle. But I don't understand this comment.

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The antes have gotten larger in relation to the future betting. Therefore, you should play looser.

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This is true in 7 stud or in NL tournaments when actual antes are used, because the antes create favorable preflop pot odds. But in a straddled game, your pot odds are the exactly the same as they would have been in a non-straddled game (with the minor difference that there are three forced posts in the straddled game). So this is not a reason to play looser.

You should play looser postflop, because the pot is bloated. But that reasoning doesn't apply preflop.

In addition, your implied odds are worse in straddled pots. So starting hand requirements should be slanted towards hands likely to win at showdown and away from implied odds-type hands -- as your K9 example suggests (I wonder whether this is profitable in EP - this would be useful knowledge in shortstacked situations). But I don't see why it would increase the proportion of hands played.

[tessarji]

I agree that the 'tighter facing a straddle' argument is only applicable if you are not also straddling.

[tessarji]

Eric, thanks for your post.

I used a rather poor choice of words in my strategy post. 'Tighter' is not really what I meant. I agree that your hand selection should be skewed differently as everyone described, but the number of hands will not change much. It will be actually somewhat more hands than before, but a different set.

A 2x straddle is not enough to completely obliviate considerations such as position. So I think my recommendations are in the right neighborhood, but perhaps simulations would show differently. I would definitely not fold a hand like KJo in such a game.

The 50x BB example you described is useful, but in the final analysis (reductio ad absurdum) reduces to a ten handed game with one blind, and no preflop or postflop betting at all. You may call or fold preflop. In such a game, all players play their hands according to strict preflop equity.

K9 would _perhaps_ be a play in that game. According to my simulation, K9s,K9o wins approx 11.8% of the time against 9 random hands. However, in general those who call will hold slightly better than average hands. Some hands are still folds; 32 wins in the neighborhood of 6.5% in that game; T4 wins 7%. So I can't say for sure regarding your proposition.

[Peter_rus]

I think you should play looser with high flopping equity cards preflop (big cards) but avoid playing hands with high implyed equity. If game is very loose you can play hands that have +ev in multyway pots in terms of w$SD probability, but not in terms of implyed odds equity.

This game is way more about preflop decisions. Postflop game now means way less.

I'll expand a bit the task:

Lets say there is 1,2 and 4$ blinds. Postflop play goes 0.1$/0.2$ (so you are obviously don't care about postflop).

The only big mistake you can do in this game is preflop mistake. Let's say you're button and everybody folded - you should raise A5o routinely and fold T9s routinaly as well if smaller blinds are likely to fold. If they likely to call any hands - you should raise all hands that have more than 25% probability to win at showdown against 3 random hands.

Obviously this game is simple. But you will crush your opponents if they play bad preflop.

Edit: After posting this - read the answers and find that this thought is already in this thread. Oops, i'm not the monkey.

[TimM]

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I agree that the 'tighter facing a straddle' argument is only applicable if you are not also straddling.

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I don't see how the strategy of playing in hands where someone else straddles could possibly be affected by whether you straddle or not in a later hand. The EV of each decision in the current hand will be the same regardless.