When should you button straddle?

Last week we had the pleasure of having Nate Meyvis on the podcast. During the episode we talked about when straddling can be +EV in regards to whether Nate should have button straddled at a table where the average player had about $500 at a 2/5 NL game. In the episode I argued it was certainly a mistake, but agreed with Nate at the time that it probably couldn't have been too bad.

After thinking about it more and having Peter O'Neill, a Just Hands Poker contributor run some numbers, I'm more convinced now that button straddling, even when you have a large skill edge on your opponents, is likely -EV for a 9 handed NLHE table. It would take a table of particularly bad opponents where many are 200 BB+ deep to make up for the extra two big blinds you're choosing to pay, even in position. When we straddle on the button we're putting an extra two big blinds in the pot.

This means that our winrate has to be at least two big blinds higher per hand on the button for button straddling to be +EV.

Let's look at the numbers for a player for whom button straddling is break even. This player must have a winrate (WR) on the button of 2 BB/hand. When we effectively double the stakes through button straddling, our WR at the original big blind will go up about 2x. Let's make the assumption that we will likely lose a little bit of our normal win rate from shortening the effective stacks, but that will be roughly made up by having the last action preflop and inducing more preflop mistakes by other players. When players are properly adjusting their preflop strategy to the button straddle, something that rarely happens in a live 1/2 or 2/5 NL game, the EV of button straddling decreases.

At a 2BB/hand WR straddling the BTN makes us no extra money, but here is an example where we lose money. Say your WR is 1BB/hand. It doubles to 2BB/hand with the straddle doubling the stakes, but then we subtract 2BB/hand again and we are at 0BB/hand.

Let's say we get 30 hands an hour in a live game, which is about the best case scenario for amount of hands one can get. Then we divide those 30 hands by the 9 different positions at the table to get how many times we're on the button per 30 hands (3 1/3). Then we multiply that by two to get our hourly rate (~6.7)

6.7 BB/hr must be your BTN WR in order to break even.

For someone with a 6.7/hr WR on the button, here are ballpark figures for what winrates at the other positions would be:

CO: 5 BB/hr

HJ: 4 BB/hr

LJ: 3 BB/hr

UTG+2: 2.5 BB/hr

UTG+1: 2 BB/hr

UTG: 1.5 BB/hr

BB: -.75 BB/hr

SB: -.25 BB/hr

Adding up all positions totals to 23.7BB/hr. So, if you are winning enough to make BTN straddling break even you are solidly winning over 20BB/hr... it seems like this is a stretch for even the best of players.

This of course isn't speaking to the times when the whole table is straddling and not straddling will ruin the atmosphere and cause other players at the table to not straddle. This is specifically for those players that feel like when they are one of the best players at the table, they should button straddle.

#straddle #winrate #button