The straddle is already a natural part of cash games. It doesn’t matter if it’s a private game, a casino, a club, or even a game among friends. There is always the possibility that the first player to act decides to double the blind. It is something that has been accepted as part of the game and almost no one questions it, except for Lee Jones 
It is commonly heard that the straddle is done to “induce action”, but Jones, a player and author of several poker articles for various media, stated that it actually “does the opposite, it only doubles the blinds, dividing the effective stacks in half, making the game more mechanical and more dependent on the showdown.”
“The straddle is dead money put into the pot before the cards are dealt. The more dead money there is, the more people will be willing to make bigger bets to take that money. It is the essence of the game we play. When people say that the straddle produces action, they might be referring to bigger pots. If so, that’s fine. But if they mean that it encourages people to play more hands, they are wrong,” Jones emphasized in one of his latest articles on the subject.
There Are Games Where The Straddle Can Be Placed In Any Position And For Any Amount.
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Another argument Jones makes against the straddle is the “dishonesty of the stakes”. According to Lee, “straddles modify the magnitude of the game and mislead potential players about its true size. They confuse and frustrate people who sit at a $2/$3 table thinking that, effectively, they will play a $2/$3 game and that their $300 stack will be 100BB.”
This would cause new players to be scared when they see that much bigger bets are made in a game than initially expected.
Lee Jones’ proposal to solve this is to include an ante in games where players request “more action”. This would generate more dead money without the need to change the previously stipulated bets every time a player decides to do so. Or, alternatively, they could also sit at a table with higher blinds and let the low stakes players have fun with their small bets.
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