The Ante Discussion

BigChrisElBigChrisEl
in Poker Games
After playing 3 games now (one official season game and two off-season games) I am just wondering what is everyone's opinions of the antes?

I am personally against them, I do not find they change anything with in the game other then making it more complicated fine tuning the old blind structure (which was fine in my opinion) and keeping track of who posted their antes. I have also found that they do not affect the game any which way.

Any one else? Pro-Con? And Why?

Comments

  • DrTyoreDrTyore
    I (grudgingly) like antes.... and here's why

    A: They make the players play more aggressively - this is my style of play, and it's my comfort zone. I feel that there's a lot of players out there that much prefer to play too safe, and therefore i probably have an advantage on them.

    B: Speeds the game along - I don't necessarity want to be playing forever.

    C: As I said earlier, I'm very aggressive, and most of my money is won throught stealing blinds and non-showdown hands. This means I make a lot more with antes.

    Mark
  • beanie42beanie42
    I really like them in larger tournaments, since you can't sit back and wait as long. They also force you to modify your play due to the new pot sizes, and make stealing more worthwhile. Doesn't make much sense for 1-2 table tourneys, though.
  • TheBusDriverTheBusDriver
    As far as Ching. Hill is concerned, antes wont/haven't changed anything, at least not to the desired effect. Tweeking the blind structure is the way to go. I have two suggestions if length of game is really becoming an issue...

    1. Increase the blind levels at a steeper rate to reflect chips in play and players remaining. Perhaps and unscheduled blind increase when 5th player is eliminated. (Just bump it up a notch)

    2. Shorten the length of the levels in the later stages.
    DrTyore wrote:
    A: They make the players play more aggressively - this is my style of play, and it's my comfort zone. I feel that there's a lot of players out there that much prefer to play too safe, and therefore i probably have an advantage on them.

    C: As I said earlier, I'm very aggressive, and most of my money is won throught stealing blinds and non-showdown hands. This means I make a lot more with antes.

    Mark

    I think your A and C comments conflict. If your aggressive, having your opponents who may normally play passively, step up their game to aggressive. Means more calls for you. Which means your less likely to steal blind, because players are now trying to (as odd as this may sound) protect their ante. The increase in aggression also means, that there will be more players trying to steal the blinds + antes (not just you). IE. you can sit at a table with 9 other tight players, and steal blinds all day. Then antes kick in, and maybe 3 of those once tight players now become blind stealers too.
  • Hork42Hork42
    I think the whole thing would run more smoothly if you changed the level length to 17 and-a-half minutes.
  • BigChrisElBigChrisEl
    TheBusDriver wrote:
    As far as Ching. Hill is concerned, antes wont/haven't changed anything, at least not to the desired effect.  Tweeking the blind structure is the way to go.  I have two suggestions if length of game is really becoming an issue...

    1. Increase the blind levels at a steeper rate to reflect chips in play and players remaining.  Perhaps and unscheduled blind increase when 5th player is eliminated.  (Just bump it up a notch)

    2. Shorten the length of the levels in the later stages.

    Well back when we first started the Blind Master gave us this blind schedule. And it makes about a 3 hour game. Now after the season is over we are back to the same discussion. Why are we considering adding antes if we were able to play 11 games and the TOC with out any real problems with blinds. Is 11:30 too late of finish for people? If so then maybe we should see about an earlier start. Starting at 8:30 and finishing at 11:30 (on average) with 10-12 players is not unreasonable.
  • BigChrisElBigChrisEl
    So I guess we are staying with the same blind structure?
  • STR82ACESTR82ACE
    Same as in WITH antes?
  • BigChrisElBigChrisEl
    STR82ACE wrote:
    Same as in WITH antes? 

    Yeah
  • STR82ACESTR82ACE
    I thought we would give it one more try with the antes. If no one is seeing a benefit, then back to the original schedule next week.
  • BigChrisElBigChrisEl
    STR82ACE wrote:
    I thought we would give it one more try with the antes.  If no one is seeing a benefit, then back to the original schedule next week.
    Any additional thoughts from last night?
  • STR82ACESTR82ACE
    By the time the antes kicked in, everyone was in fairly decent shape as far as chip stack, but I think the reason for the huge stacks was the fact we had 16 players out, making it 16000 chips in total on the table. But they did have an impact on Derek and Jeff though. Did it help speed up the game? I don't think so, as it was midnight before it was all over anyway.

    I'm not convinced they are needed. My personal opinion though. It didn't change the way I played at all really until the antes went to 50 and the blinds were 150/300. Made for huge starting pots, but I don't think I played for those starting pots once...didn't have too.
  • ElElliottElElliott
    I haven't seen them make a significant impact, and I think they make things more complicated than they need to be.

    They are not needed for the size of our game.
  • derksenderksen
    I didn't like them. Knocked me out too quickly :D

    Seriously though, it makes the short stacks (which might I add were not that short) make more drastic moves. I was losing 100 chips out of my 2000-2500 chip stack each rotation if I didn't steal or enter a pot. The rotations were moving so fast, I think it would equate to about 1 round of folding for me till the stack is gone. Each hand was dealt and done in almost a minute, so with 20 minute rounds and me losing 100 per rotation.... well, ask Justin, he's done the math already :D
  • JHJJHJ
    The antes are interesting in our tournaments because as much as they dont do much for the timing of the end of the game, I have noticed a lot more aggression in the final few people. If you have trouble adjusting to it then you start to see even a large stack fall. It adds a new dimension to the game because too much aggression is bad and too little is costly so you have to develope a new balance. I say keep them how they are because they make the end of the game more interesting.
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