Guide
How a straddle changes your opening sizes
Every preflop chart you have read is written in big blinds for a game with no straddle. Sit down in a straddled game and the chart is not wrong, it is just describing a different game to the one in front of you. The fix is one substitution and one rule.
The straddle is the big blind
A $10 straddle in a $2/$5 game is a voluntary blind that acts last before the flop. For every sizing decision it is the big blind, and the $5 one is small change. Read your own stack that way too: $1,500 is 300 big blinds and it is 150 straddles, and the second number is the one that describes how the hand will play.
Four in, plus two and a half a limper
Open to four straddles when nobody has come in, and add two and a half more for every player who has. It looks large next to an online chart because it is answering a different question: there is already money in front of you, and the people behind you are calling one more bet whatever you make it.
| In front of you | Dead money | Open to | In big blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nobody | $17 | $40 | 8 bb |
| One limper | $27 | $65 | 13 bb |
| Two limpers | $37 | $90 | 18 bb |
| Three limpers | $47 | $115 | 23 bb |
The last column is the trap. An opening raise of $115 over three limpers reads as an enormous number if you are still counting in big blinds, and it is 23 of them. In the game being played it is four blinds and a bit, which is an ordinary open.
What a small open costs you
Raise to $25 over two limpers and you have made it two and a half straddles into a pot of $37. Both limpers are getting better than three to one and neither of them is folding, so you have built a four-way pot with the initiative and no fold equity, out of a hand you raised to have fewer opponents. The size is not a matter of taste; it is the whole reason for raising.
Where the charts still work
Which hands to open with barely moves. What moves is the price, the number of players who see a flop, and how deep everybody is in the units that matter. Use the range you trust, then size it for the game in front of you.
Questions people ask
Should I straddle myself?
It is a blind you post out of position for the privilege of acting last preflop, so it loses money on its own. Whether the table getting looser is worth more than that depends on who is at it, which is a question about your table rather than about the straddle.
Does the straddle change which hands I open?
Hardly. It changes the price, the pot and the effective depth. Suited and connected hands go up a little in value because pots are bigger and multiway, and hands that wanted to be heads-up go down.
What about the button straddle?
The same arithmetic, with the action starting at the small blind and the straddler acting last on every street. That is a genuine positional advantage rather than a tax, which is why rooms that allow it usually charge for it somehow.
Read next
- Why solver output does not fit the game in front of youA solve answers a question about two players, no straddle and a hundred big blinds. Here is what changes when three live players see a flop.
- What the rake actually does to your marginal handsA capped drop takes far more out of a small pot than a big one. The real numbers for a $2/$5 game, and what an hour of it costs your win rate.
- What actually beats you when the board pairsTrip eights on the board are everybody's trips. The exact count of the hands that beat you, worked out against every combination left in the deck.
Driller deals you straddled pots at the stakes you actually play, and grades the size you chose against the pot in front of you.