Thoughts in the below strategic approach would be appreciated:

I play in a 5/10 full ring game where the maximum buy in is $2500 and about half the players are at $2500+, including all the professionals. A certain cadre of professionals Mississippi straddles the button (this is awful for the game BTW, many recreational players make gigantic mistakes postflop and from the blinds). I am frequently in the blinds sitting to the left of the professionals. Under many game conditions it plays acceptably to simply open a very tight range from, say, the small blind. It does, however, really define our opening hand range very well in what are frequently quite large pots, far OOP, with medium SPR’s – not an ideal situation. We have to make difficult decisions with medium strength hands frequently in large pots, OOP. Limping in these games is typically not an option. Further, when the games are quite active, it is very challenging to open and continue even with our very strong range with a lot of squeezing and /or the pots going exte nsively multi-way.

Another note, is that with the typical lot of recreational players in the game, there is a lot of weak opening and limping that the button straddling pros will either raise or re-raise isolate from the button with any playable hand, i.e. probably even too wide a range from the button.

I am attempting to construct a strategic response. My thoughts were both for an exploitive and more balanced counter to this dynamic. I am considering adopting a limp or fold sb strategy. We can then divide our preflop continuing range into limp folding (maybe none), limp calling and limp re-raising. Note, given this unusual dynamic we might consider donking some of our “normal opening range” hands, given certain flop boards and the preflop action, to recapture initiative. I also note that this particular group of professionals calls too light, with unfavorable small SPR’s, infrequently folding to three bets / limp re-raises; if they fold more the strategy can be adjusted appropriately.

Given this I am thinking of a limp re-raising range that allows us to play effectively vs a fairly wide calling range by the button straddle. Consider a limp re-raising range of (AA-QQ, 33-55, 9Ts, TJs). It is designed to have nuttiness on most board textures and gives decent playability when called. We do not have removal effects for our bluffs but recall they open quite wide and it is unusual for this group to four-bet light especially given the escalated stakes and live dynamic. The “bluff” hands are difficult to open profitably under the conditions of interest. Our limp calling range is the remainder of a typical early position opening range and perhaps we keep a combo of AA and KK in that range? This also let’s us get some equity from our small pairs and good suited connectors that are arguably folds given the SPR, the wide opening range of the button and how transparent our limp call range is.

An exploitive alternative strategy is to still open other parts of our limp calling range and just limp re-raise as suggested above. I believe the proper major adjustment to this would be to attack our now depleted opening range. This is unlikely to happen live where our strategy may never become fully apparent.

In essence, I am attempting to design a strategy that is responsive to the typical live game conditions that also adjusts to the unfortunate consequence of having to play the blinds so far OOP in a MISSISIPPI straddle game. There are always many live adjustments but I like to build my thinking around a solid unexploitable strategy.

Consider we limp the small blind with $20 button straddle, there are two other limpers and button opens to $120, we limp re-raise to $320, somewhat less than pot size. The pot is $480 and it is $200 to call. The button is getting 2.4/1 vs our range, (AA-QQ, 33-55, 9Ts, TJs), 18 value, 18 pairs and 8 suited connectors. Given that our “bluffs” still have significant equity this should be reasonable. We should now also have a measure of deception on our side helping to alleviate our positional disadvantage.

I don’t believe it is critical that the strategy is balanced live as I think the opposition will not quickly, thoughtfully adjust given the nature of live play. It just needs to be a playable, profitable baseline from which to adjust.

On the other hand we are trying to get the poker room manager to eliminate all but UTG straddle as the button straddle annoys the recreational players. They cannot call $100 with their junky hands a see a flop and that is bad for everyone.