Straddling

I saw this on poker after dark and decided to do some research into when its used because i had never before seen it. I found that its not standard in casinos vary on whether you are allowed to use it or not. So my question is if am playing live in a casino should i be taking advantage of straddling or should i just ignore it all together. I know that it can get you into some tough spots post flop and i really don't consider myself the best player in these situations. So is it profitable to use this even though you might get put into some tough spots, your big hands should get paid off well?

Yeah, min betting UTG without looking at your cards sounds like a great strategy to me. It just makes the game play bigger because it's more dead money in the pot. You should love people who straddle because they're there to give you their money, but you should never straddle yourself unless you're only doing it to keep all the other worse players doing it as well.

Just forget that you even saw it then. Like WV said it is only used to get more money into the pot so you can ideally take it away with your postflop skilss, and by you saying "I know that it can get you into some tough spots post flop and i really don't consider myself the best player in these situations" that tells me that you really don't have any. It makes for good TV because the pots are bigger.

It's a great way to build a pot pre flop with a nitty table, however, as soon as the straddle comes into a game, players often lower their range of calling hands and a late position raise ( correctly valued ) takes many pre flop pots. IMO, I wouldn't enter a straddled pot unless I had a premium hand suitable enough to make a big pre flop raise with.

sounds like Blind mans Bluff to me is that correct?.

In the beginning there were only ante's, and that was fine, except they were a pain in the ass to keep track of, so some smart fellow invented the blind and at first there was only a single blind, and that was Ok too, but the pots were small, and there was no great reason to gamble, and everyone wanted a little more, so a 2nd, and bigger blind was invented, and it was better! More of a gamble, more "ACTION".

So the straddle is a stretch of the concept that the more the pot is, the more it is worth getting involved in trying to collect the pot. And the more reason to gamble.

The game will play differently with a bigger dead money pot. Different odds would be applicable if you play a standard game, and have figured the odds for that standard game.

Under normal circumstance all at the table would be straddling, or none would.

In my usual game, around half the players straddle, I usually never do. There are sometimes when it can be extremly profitable though. I will straddle for the first few orbits in a new game, in order for people to think that i am a bad player.

Usually though, if the game gets shorthanded (4 or less) then a straddle can swell the pots for you when you are in position, even though thats rare.

To play in a game with a regular straddle, like we see in Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker, you need to be very well bankrolled as your are essential agreeing with the other players at the table to make the game twice as big. If you sit down at a $1/$2 game with a standard buy-in of $200 (100BB), but then all players agree to put a straddle of $4 in the game, you now really only have 50BB so there is less play involved. On TV shows the players have generally bought it for several hundred Big Blinds so doubling the stakes still gives them plenty of money to play deep stacked with. It's not really an advantage for anyone if everyone is doing it, but if others are happy to do it without yourself having to do it, it's a big advantage for you as there is more dead money in the pot for you to steal.