If you don't play live cash poker, this scenario may be foreign to you. But if you've ever sat in a mid-stakes cash game in a major market poker room, you've experienced the following...
Let's say you're in a $2/$5 NLH cash game. The stacks are mostly between $500 and $1k, and maybe once per orbit, there's a $10 straddle put out. It's a fine poker game. But then a couple of rec players leave, replaced by regulars. Not 15 minutes later, one of them says, "How about a round of $10 straddles?"
If you're a regular live cash player, you know where this is going. The ones who want to straddle will cajole or embarrass the others into doing it (peer pressure didn't end in junior high school). The straddle will go around, and then the guy who started the whole thing will put it out again when it comes back around. The next thing you know, you're sitting in a $2/5/10 game – twice as big as you'd originally planned.
The problem – creeping stakes inflation
I was playing at the Bellagio one evening during this past WSOP, and was seated at a $5/$10 NLH table. "They've got the $20 straddle on all the time," said the dealer as I sat down. That's fine. I had been watching this table (among others) and knew that the $20 straddle was "mandatory" at this table. I was comfortable playing at those stakes, though I certainly appreciated the dealer giving me a heads-up. If I had not been comfortable playing an effectively $5/$10/$20 game, I could have refused the seat or asked for a table change.
That worked great for an hour or two. Then two new players sat down, and one of them didn't wait an entire orbit before saying, "Hey, how about a round of $40?" "Excellent idea," said the other newcomer. The guy who seconded the "$40" motion was wearing a hoodie that simply said, "Straddle?"
I was the first one to speak up: "No thanks. We've had the $20 on, and I'm good with that."
They gave me 'The Look', but I'm an old man and long past the point of caring what young professional guns think about me.
Why does this happen?
For-profit players say that the straddle "induces more action." Bullsh*t. What it does do is double the stakes of the game, and takes weaker and recreational players out of their comfort zone. They play more timidly, more honestly, and are that much easier targets for the good players.
Look, people sit down in a game at a specific stakes level for a reason – they don't need or want random regs calling audibles on the stakes they're playing.
It's a constant problem in mid-stakes games, and it was high time somebody did something about it.
Enter the Wynn and Ryan Beauregard
Ryan Beauregard, the Director of Poker Operations at the Wynn Las Vegas, has announced that they are prohibiting straddles in $5/$10 and $10/$20 games. Instead, they are adding a big-blind ante to those games.
This is excellent news, and it's no surprise that this change is first appearing at the Wynn, which is legendary for its forward-thinking poker management.
This means that if you sit down in a $5/$10 game at the Wynn, it will always be a $5/$10 game. Paraphrasing our British cousins, "It's the game it says on the placard." No "round of $20's" that suddenly becomes permanent. People who sat down to play a $5/$10 game will be playing a $5/$10 game, and can be sure that won't change.
Adding the big-blind ante is a cool twist, because it should, in theory, induce the additional action that the straddle-mongers claimed their straddles would. Using a $5/$10 game as an example, an extra $10 dead in the pot motivates people to open a bit wider, and for the blinds to defend a bit more loosely. Whether that actually happens or not is still TBD, but if there's any change it will certainly be in the direction of people playing more hands – i.e. the definition of "action."
What does this mean for me?
I can't say what it means for you, but I know what it means for me, Lee Jones. It means that when I'm in Las Vegas, the Wynn gets all my poker action. I like playing games with $10, and occasionally $20 big blinds. What a joy to be able to look at the game listing and know that if it says it's a $5/$10 game, that's what they're playing. Not, "Oh, this $5/$10 table doesn't have a straddle on, but that $5/$10 table over there has the $20 and $40 straddles on."
I mean, it's not hard to pick the Wynn as your Las Vegas poker room – they've been getting stuff right from the jump. This is just another data point that they're constantly working to do what's best for their players.
Sean McCormack (MGM properties), Tommy LaRosa (Venetian), Leon Wheeler (Resorts World)... gentlemen, the ball is your court. This is a "best practice" if ever I've seen one, and if there were a cash game equivalent of the TDA (what a beautiful day that would be) this policy would get instant and overwhelming support.
I honestly believe that this idea, in one variant or another, will sweep across mid-stakes cash games the way the big-blind ante swept across the tournament world.
Until that glorious dawn, Mr. Beauregard, please put me on both the $5/$10 and $10/$20 lists. Oh wait, I can just do that through Poker Atlas now. Cool.
