Is it normal to be able to straddle whenever?

So I usually only do tournaments and when I did do cash games it was usually pot limit. Well yesterday I decided to play 1-3 NL at my local boat and this guy was straddling almost every other hand, and I thought you could only do that when you missed your blind and had to buy it to play. The dude was playing in the most obnoxious bully way ever too, I could tell he was raising a bunch of bullshit hands but I couldn't call him with what I had, well I saw the opportunity finally when I had BB with pocket duces. 3-4-9 comes up, 3 and 4 are hearts which is what one of my duces were so I'm like "hmmmm I'll bet 5 and see if he raises, if he does he's trying to push me out on a flush draw" sure enough, he takes it to 30 and I call. Turn comes up and another 3 is the card, I'm like "oh I got this motherfucker now" so I shove in what I had, he calls, and the fucker KEEPS HIS CARDS FACE DOWN until the river comes up, which lucky for him was the king of hearts, the dude shows 6-7 hearts. Which confirmed my theory that he was trying to push people out with bullshit hands, too bad it worked!

Regarding the straddle anywhere…

Very few casinos allow this. Most only allow the under the gun straddle, some also allow the button straddle. And there are various rules for how various different straddles work. But in general, all the books will tell you that a straddle helps other players more than it helps the straddler.


Regarding the all in...

In cash games, you are not required to show the cards before more cards are dealt.

Still shows he was playing bs hands though, the guy only had a 20% chance of catching a flush and he called with a 6-7. Shitty play he made because his bully raises weren't working. And maybe I should just stick to tournaments here then and just do cash at Hollywood, they don't let you do that crap.

EDIT: I guess he had 14 outs in total because he had 8 hearts (including the fact that I had the 2 of hearts) and he could have caught a 6 or a 7, but that's still only a 30.3% chance of catching something that would beat me. Still pisses me off you can just straddle everybody out of the hand, that ain't skill, that's like saying you're good at playing Halo because you camp all day with the energy sword.

Quote: Zer0

Still shows he was playing bs hands though

So why are you complaining

Because he busted me in an all in with a hand that shouldn't have been in and was only in because he was abusing a stupid rule to bully everybody.

Quote: Zer0

Because he busted me in an all in with a hand that shouldn't have been in and was only in because he was abusing a stupid rule to bully everybody.

That's part of poker.

Yeah but it's also part of poker to have to decide if it's worth the RISK to do so with what you have, you can try to steal the blind with 2-7 OS but you'll get burned if you get called, this takes that out of the equation.

Edit: and the other thing about it that's bull is that it makes bb the first to act, when you're voluntarily preraising a forced ante without looking at your cards, you should be first to act, period.

so, you're telling me, you don't like fish because they can make donk moves and bust you.

so what like, you love playing pros?

I'm saying I don't like this rule because it makes it so fish can easily get away with making donk moves a lot more, especially if they buy in with more than you. Fish are going to win on donk moves all the time but this makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Quote: Zer0

I'm saying I don't like this rule because it makes it so fish can easily get away with making donk moves a lot more, especially if they buy in with more than you. Fish are going to win on donk moves all the time but this makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Sounds like a money making opportunity though. You just need to save up because the game will obviously play bigger. And yeah, I think in that area they are bad about letting straddles go anywhere. The one time I played a PLO/PLO8 mix, button straddles were allowed, and it was $10 on the button with over half of the players. I was under-rolled and pushed around too. Getting the last of my money in about a 9 to 1 favorite on the flop and losing didn't help...lol

Yeah like the problem was this dude had 300 bucks and I only had 100 and I didn't want to risk 7 bucks on like J-5 or something. If I have a hand like J-5 on BB, I'm going to fold to a raise but if nobody raises, I get to see the flop because I'm forced to pay the blind, that's the point of how the blind is supposed to work; as a trade off to having to pay it, you get to see the flop unless somebody signals that they have a stronger hand than you by raising, and if somebody tries to steal your blind when you have AA or something, they likely just gave you free money. To be able to pay to steal the blind without working for it and get the advantage of "they could have anything" that BB has is broken as hell.

Edit: I will say I am happy knowing I made the right move, I'm trying to sharpen my skills so I think it's good that I figured out the shit he was trying to pull and made an aggressive action to get him on it and I picked a good time to do it, he got lucky this time but now at least I know if I keep playing like that I'll get the next person that pulls that crap. It just sucks this happened when I had 100 dollars cash and not a 50 dollar tourney like I usually do.

You talk about the odds of him making his hand. Without knowing pot and stack sizes it sounds like he was the best player at the table. No limit is about implied odds more than true.

I guess he did have a gut shot straight flush draw on the flop, but come the turn, the implied odds are 9/46 of catching a flush on the river or 4/46 for a straight, 5 of hearts would have gotten him SF, so he had a 12/46 total chance of getting something, assuming I had a pair that could beat 6's or 7's, if he didn't catch those on the river, he was dead meat. The true odds were actually BETTER than the implied odds, which is a 74% chance he's dead.

So using your math he had a 1 in 4 chance of stacking you. How much with your all in did he have to pay to see the river? How much was the pot total? Was he advertising for future victims? Implied odds in NLHE are not fixed, they are variable depending on player tendencies and stack sizes. NLHE is art while LHE is science. You need to chuck out science when playing NLHE.