Back In the Straddle Again

What is a straddle? A normal straddle is a blind bet of twice the big blind and is made by the player to the left of the regular blinds. If the blinds are $5 and $10, then a straddle would be $20. If the blinds are $25-$$50, then a straddle would be $100. The straddler becomes the last player to act before the flop, and his blind bet is live.

This means that he can raise himself. Straddles are almost never allowed in tournaments, but most live cash games allow straddles by the player to the immediate left of the big blind. A few Southern games allow something known as a Mississippi Straddle, which is a straddle by a player in late position, usually the button. (Mississippi Straddles are not generally allowed, especially since the order of pre-flop betting becomes very confused.)

What is the minimum raise after a straddle? Casinos follow two different rules for what the minimum raise is after a straddle. The old standard rule treated a straddle like another blind, and thus the first raise by any player has to be to at least twice the amount of the straddle. For example, in a $5-$10 no-limit hold’em game, without a straddle, the minimum first raise would be to $20. With a straddle of $20, the minimum first raise would now be to $40. (Note that this is consistent with a game in which there are three blinds or a mandatory straddle. For example, if the blinds were $5-$10-$20, then the first raise would be at least $40.) Many casinos have decided to treat straddles as if they were raises, not blind bets, and allow a lower raise.

For example, in a $2-$5 game with a $10 straddle, they allow a raise to $15. This treats the straddle as if the blind of $5 had been raised to $10, and so another player could raise to $15. I personally hate this interpretation. By extension that should mean that after blinds of $2-$5, the next player could make it $8, since the big blind “raised” $3, so the next raise could also be $3. No one interprets the big blind as a raise of the small blind. I feel strongly that a straddle is like an additional blind and shouldn’t be treated as a raise of the big blind. For some reason, however, this misinterpretation of the straddle has become increasingly common. Luckily it is seldom relevant, since players almost always raise amounts that are at least double the straddle.

Should you straddle? Or to phrase it differently, is it ever right to straddle? The short answer is that from a mathematical point of view, it is never right. Straddling more than doubles your cost per round, and gets you involved in a lot of marginal situations with bad position. There are, however, some psychological reasons to straddle. It gives the other players the impression that you are a loose, wild gambler.

Like many diseases, straddling is often catching. If most of the other players start to straddle, especially weaker players with large stacks, you have essentially raised the stakes of the game. Since you should be more skilled than your opponents (otherwise find a different game) this will be to your advantage. When you straddle, call a raise with a questionable hand, and end up winning a big pot from someone who started with a much better hand, he may go on tilt. Clearly one or two straddles are a cheap price to pay for putting your opponents on tilt. Unfortunately those situations don’t happen very often, and the rest of the time you just cost yourself money. ♠

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.