Please help with this poll.

Venues are considering changes to short handed bb ante situations.

4 handed at final table 30k 60k level.
Venue uses bb ante but open to suggestions.

Which would you prefer?

A) Continue full BB ante (Aria/Commerce).
Sb 30k bb 120k others zero.

B) Reduce BB ante by half (Wynn/Party).
Sb 30k bb 90k others zero.

C) No bb ante at ft. Sb 30k bb 60k all ante 10k

If I vote for the winner do I get partial credit for the change or will you say that it was all you?

A dozen "I told you so" tweets are guaranteed.

Not a fan of the BB Ante movement, seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

I hope WSOP isn’t considering changing from traditional table ante structures to a “BB Ante”.

Wsop already toying with the format and uses option A at circuit events.

They can mess around with Circuits for all I care, but I hope they don't adopt this for the WSOP-Las Vegas.

I believe it changes how the game is played. It's a big difference if a real shortstack gets to keep his entire stack for up to 8 hands for free, or if he is chipped away by an ante every single hand. It effects what hands you might play.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think it matters whether every player at the table has some chips in every pot in every hand, that is what a table ante is supposed to accomplish.

+1

/Thread

Voted C

There are a few bb ante events this summer at wsop

Big fan of BB ante speeds up game.

Sure it can suck in a few spots where it just cripples your tournament life but longterm it's EV neutral as that will happen to your opponents as well at times.

I believe the issue of antes slowing down the game is not really an issue anymore when the tourney gets down to the last table.

If there is one or two guys who seem to be forgetting to post their antes at FT, just give them a warning followed by a small penatly. Pretty sure they will be first to post their antes after that

I am not a big BB ante fan, but the “problem” is definitely there. Players are annoyed by having to put their phones down every time and it feels like half the table has to be reminded to put in their ante at least once every orbit. Just feels like that’s one of those things that have very little future in a world of super short attention span and the latter is a thing that certainly won’t go away.

Certainly only a minor thing in that regards, but pace of play is the #1 problem in live MTTs.

Sure, there’s a problem with pace of play, but that problem isn’t caused by antes, it’s caused by slow players. BB antes aren’t going to improve that.

You may as well try to tackle slow play in golf by letting caddies use a trolley.

Im a bit confused by this whole BB Ante movement ...

If the BB pays the ante for the whole table, it's really the same as nobody paying the ante, with an additional blind bet paid by the BB

Why is the ante needed then?

Do away with the ante altogether, you can always adjust the blinds

The ante is "dead" where the blind is live money. The ante increases the size of the pot and the cost per orbit.

I don't hate the concept of a BB ante, but I also don't see why it is necessary. If you asked me to list the problems I see in tournament poker, people neglecting to post their antes wouldn't be in top 20.

And if people do think there is a problem with people not posting their antes, it seems like the better solution would be to penalize those players (e.g. if you don't post your ante by the time the shuffle starts, you have to post a double ante) than to change the structure of the game.

It also allows a much smoother structure and allows earlier elimination of small chips which also increases speed of game play.

^^^This exactly

BB Ante did NOT speed things up at the tournament I played at the Wynn last month.

*thumbs down*

From my experience, the "BB ante" speeds up the game considerably. Hope it gets implemented.

I don't care if it "speeds up the game" (which I doubt), if it means materially and fundamentally changing the structure of the game.

Heck, having two players post blinds takes up time, how about just one player posts BOTH blinds and ALL antes?

Heck, shuffling the cards after each hand is such a time killer, how about we just eliminate the second and third shuffles of the deck shuffle procedure?

I find it absurd to fundamentally change the structure of the game because it "might save time". Especially when we all know the biggest time killers are slow players, serial tanking, after the cards have already been dealt.

You want to speed the game up, address that issue, not fundamentally changing the structure of the game.

so you have doubts it speeds up game? listen man - its a no brainer that collecting (9) individual antes + making individual change for said antes is much more time consuming then (1) player doing it for table. Some players need constant reminders to put out their ante every hand. It saves plenty of time.

anything to speed up live game is a net positive. you may not personally care about speeding up game however keep in mind plenty of people consider it a higher priority than the slight change to overall structure. (zomg structure changed wat gonnnna doooo _-- get over it)

I would support a rule change that would punish people who routinely fail to post their ante if this is slowing down the game.

But the BB ante does not come without a cost. For one thing, it encourages angle shooting when a player is switching tables and sees they might be switched into the big blind. It also increases the perceived unfairness of situations in which someone is moved into the BB right after they recently posted that BB at the previous table. Finally, it exacerbates the unequal treatment of short stacks in situations where you are down to a few tables and there are an unequal number of players at each table.

Again, I'm not totally opposed to a BB ante. I just don't see what the big deal is. It solves a minor problem while creating a few other minor problems.

I agree it attempts to solve a minor problem but creates lots of others. What happens when the BB doesn't even have enough for a round of Antes? Does it all go into the Antes and therefore BB can only break even if he wins the hand?

Also, yes you will see many more guys walking around with table cards feigning like they can't quite find their new table assignment so as to make sure they don't sit down to the now punishing BB+All Antes seat.

IMHO the dealer collecting a table ante from everyone is a minor delay compared to the elephant in the room of people taking way to long to act when its their turn, why not start where the biggest problem is.

Fly,


Well do you expect money to appear out of no where (and thus added to pot)? So assuming BB can't fully cover ante and BB he is only liable to win what his current chips are.


And to the last part about BB breaking even. There is still a SB so if BB does win the pot he will NOT be breaking even. He will at very minimum net profit the SB and have a longer tournament life having just paid the big blind and ante he has a full orbit to absorb any liability from having to pay the ante again.

How often do you think the above is an issue anyway?


I just scratch my head when you got people getting worked up about a change that is actually overall a net positive if they think about it hard enough. they spurt some bs reasons and claim the fundamental change in structure is unwarranted.


So listen man..... The fly ..... I have a feeling the bb structure only changes the game structure like 0.5-8%. Which don't get me wrong is worthy of note, yet not enough to constitutive radical strategy changes. Live poker sucks for a lot of reasons, but lets promote changes that facilitate faster game play. If you want to counter and provide evidence on why this changing strategy is bad but sometimes change must be approached with a fresh wit and keen eye. All the best.



Thanks for reading.
Icd

I just have to assume people complaining about a single ante are the ones who regulary forget to ante if they don't realize how much of a time saver it is

ICrushDreams,

Actually there was just a big debate on Twitter about if the player is posting the ante first or the BB first. Say they have 6k chips at the 3k/6k level with 6k BB ante. If their 6k is the BB they also win the SB. If their 6k is the ante, they don't win the SB.

I think it is a very rare situation and both ways make their own sense.