What's a straddle.

I have been playing at UB for years now and on a trip down to my closest casino and sitting down and the 3/6 limit table I noticed that the player after the big blind would choose to "straddle" and raise it up before the cards were dealt. What is the point of this?

stradle is just betting in the blind. It is ment to build the pot or just take a chance.

a straddle is when the person to the left of the BB puts in 2x the BB pre flop... thus he and no one at the table have seen the cards yet... when the cards are dealt the person who straddles is now the last one to act and basically the new BB... the first person to act would be the guy 2 to the left of the original BB, hence 1 to the left of the person who straddles... nothing much to it.. basically the stakes are doubled and the BB changes..

You'll always find some idiot at the casino do this at the low stakes tables. It's the dumbest move in poker. You are min-betting bad position. If you are in late position and have a hand you just raise it more.

thats the only point of it really. its normally done by someone with a large chipstack or just someone who wants to take advantage of a weak table. it has its roots in hope and thats about all it is too. put in extra money preflop, and hope you get lucky, or just raise raise raise. a lotta people dont want to invest say, 9 or 12 bucks preflop at a 3/6 limit table, so it can be easy money to some extent, or at least less competition.

Thanks Guys. It is totally what I suspected it was...an idiots bet. LOL

As one poster said, absolutely retarded to straddle in a low limit game like 2-4 3-6 4-8...it may work in that some people will be more inclined to fold but the main point of a straddle in a 1-2 or 2-5 no limit game is to bump it to a pretty decent preflop value if you look down and have a strong hand...this wont work in a low limit game. I personally never straddle because I find that when you do pick up a hand and raise everyone and their dog is inclined to look you up and never seems to give you credit for a hand and you will see people get big hands cracked frequently on straddles for this reason. I do have one rule though that I abide by when playing NL and a straddle is out...I never ever call....I fold or raise....even if I have pocket 2s I bump it to 3 times whatever the straddle is (most places I've played a straddle in 1-2NL is 4 or 5$ though some allow insane amounts much higher).

It seem like when i travel to my local casino and play 3/6 tables there is always an idot who does a live straddle. If I have a hand i just reraise it and then the straddler will be forced to call ussually and I end up getting the benifit of there idoitcy.

Every now and then at my local casino's low limit ring games someone will straddle. I have yet to see a straddler win a pot. Usually, all the straddler ends up doing is irritating everyone else at the table.

Y'all should come play at my local card room. $1/$2 and almost every hand is straddled, makes for some big pot And if there was not the limit of just the 1 straddle, I could guarantee you that half the hands would have 2-3 additional straddles . I have seen some big bluffs from the straddle as well as some big hands. Biggest pot I've seen there was a $600+ pot w/ 3 players.

Generally, you want to try and get the whole table to straddle, it induces more action & forces the table to play a looser style (which generally plays into the hands of more experienced players).

However, if you're the only person straddling every round, you're just an idiot.

People straddle because they see pros do it on TV.

If a single play at a table is doing it (by himself) then you know something very valuable about the nature of his play I think. He is a gambler first. He will chase when he shouldn't. His range will be a most cards. Chances are he will love bluffing and do it a bunch. Since he has shown that he doesn't really understand the idea of a straddle (which would be to get the whole table doing it) you can assume he might not think much about his play.

cAPS

So in other words its when a person Bets when they dont have a clue what cards they have... lol I really don't see what good that would do anybody lol. Tho I just started and I might be missing the whole point of it

Think of it as a third blind...

Small blind 10
Big blind 20
Straddle 40

It is a bet made "in the dark" or "blind" used to induce action.

Yes it is a call in the dark,double the price of the big blind i think some players do it just to see if they can get lucky or just to be ignorant

Sometime it is good to do a couple of straddles, if you have a nice stack and the table is playing ultra tight. This will sometimes loosing up the table and get the action going...