Live straddles...

[jayknabl]

I was playing a live game last night and some dude started throwing live straddles onto the blinds.

What's the logic here? Why would you want to raise the blinds before you even look at your cards? Why wouldnt you wait to see what you have, and then raise?

The only thing i can think of to justify this play would be for the sake of projecting an agressive table image, which didn't really work, it just made the guy look like a jackass to me.

[gabe]

straddles*

[jayknabl]

right, straddles, sorry

they seemed so stupid to me i just didn't bother remembering what the proper name was

[JL]

it just made the guy look like a jackass to me.

Exactly, you thought he was a jackass, therefore you give him less respect, and call him down more with marginal hands. This type of play makes it seem like he doesnt care about money, and hes a gambler. This is exactly what he is trying to achieve.

Table image is huge at a live game.

[Renton]

live straddles are still retarded. I highly doubt, especially when considering how much higher rake is live, that the ev you give up when paying 2bb to play a pot in horrible position with any two cards allows you to be able to have any edge whatsoever in the game.

[Eric]

I never do it but I guess some players like to gamboool or at least have a table image of being a gambler.

[jayknabl]

i understand he was trying to look like a gambler... but to me, it doesnt seem like an effective advertising tool at all... Everybody seemed to read right through it... it looked like he was TRYING to LOOK like a gambler, if you know what i mean.

There are other ways, IMO, to make yourself appear like a maniac, straddling just seems like a forced way to do it.

To clear this up, there's really no tactical point to doing this, right? Other than "image" ?

[Fnord]

GAMB00000000000000000L!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although if they let you straddle on the button, you should.

[Numbr2intheWorld]

I know laggy gamblers who straddle the blinds all the time. It's not transparent.

[KoRnholio]

I suppose it could be good if you're the big stack and want to put added pressure on people limping in. Also the live straddler gets to act last preflop. So if there's no raise he can still raise the limpers.

Then again, it could be all for gambol

[Lukie]

to have fun? That's gotta be the overwhelmingly correct answer.

[BankItDrew]

to have fun? That's gotta be the overwhelmingly correct answer.

It is for me. I have found that I play probably 33% of hands live whereas I play 20% online multi tabling. Me thinks it's simply wanting to have more fun by playing more hands. I think it also helps in hand reading skills to play more often, especially live.