What Is a Straddle in Poker?

A straddle is a voluntary blind raise posted before the cards are dealt, almost always double the big blind, by the player immediately to the left of the big blind. It plays as a live bet: everyone after it must call the straddle to enter, and the straddler gets the last word before the flop. Stakes double, the pot starts bigger, and the whole table is suddenly playing half as deep.

How a straddle works at the table

In a $1/$2 cash game the under-the-gun player puts $4 out before the deal, and the hand is effectively $2/$4. Opens are sized off the straddle rather than the big blind — a standard raise is $12, not $6 — and the action runs round to the straddler, who may check or raise exactly like a big blind.

Say you hold A♦J♦ on the BTN, UTG straddles to $4, and two players call. You raise to $18 into $15 that is already in the middle, against a straddler who acts last preflop and third on every street after it. The investment is double the usual button raise, and so is the dead money you are attacking.

What it does to your stack

A straddle changes no cards. It changes depth. Buy in for $200 in a $1/$2 game and you sit 100bb deep, but the moment a straddle goes on that same $200 is 50 big blinds, and every stack at the table halves at once.

Count your stack in straddles, not in the posted big blind, and play the depth you actually have.

$1/$2, $200 stacks	No straddle	$4 straddle
Effective big blind	$2	$4
Stack depth	100bb	50bb
Typical open	$6	$12
Dead money preflop	$3	$7

Should you straddle

From under the gun, mostly not. You are paying two big blinds blind for the privilege of acting third postflop, which is the worst seat at the table dressed up as aggression. The honest reason to do it is game selection: a straddle makes the game bigger, which pays when you are the best player in it and burns money when you are not.

A button straddle, where the house allows one, is a different bet. There you buy the last action preflop and position on the whole table afterwards, and two big blinds is close to a fair price for that.

Playing against one

Tighten the hands that need depth and widen the hands that attack dead money. At 50bb effective, small pairs and suited connectors lose the implied odds that justify them, while broadway hands gain, because stacks now go in on one strong pair far more often.

Read the straddle as the big blind, halve your stack in blinds, then use the solver-built preflop charts for that depth instead of your 100bb defaults.