In my home poker league a couple of us are trying to convince the others that we need to be using antes in our structure. What are the points we should be making?

I think we can sway a couple of members of the rules committee with sound arguments. It was originally proposed for 2 reasons.

1. events have been lasting much longer than usual because our attendance is up. Antes would cause the games to end a little sooner, back to about where they used to be.

2. It helps to better prepare those of us who like to venture out to B&M tourneys on occasion.

I know there are other good reasons why all "real" hold em tourneys use antes, but I am not sure exactly what those reasons are. Chime in here please and help me build a case.

Antes put more money on the table, opening up the action. There is more to play for each hand.

Antes force the action, larger starting pot = wider opening range = quicker shove fest

AW

The argument that antes put more money on the table is false -- sort of.

Adding antes is a change to the structure. If you change the structure you can generally put more money in the table in a number of ways. antes are one, but so is changing the blinds. Ante's don't inherently put more money into play.

The advantage of antes is that it allows finer adjustment to the blind structure. This would gnereally be advantageous to do if you wanted to slow a tournament structure, though it could be used to speed one up.

If you feel your tournaments are taking to long I would be more inclined to adjust the blinds/starting stacks/ or level time then to add antes.

On problem with antes is that they can slow the play down because each hand you have to remind many players 4 times to put their ante in.

You do have to learn how to get the antes not to slow things down, and that will take work, but it can be done.

Antes put more dead money in the pot, which gives everybody more incentive to play each pot. This is different than merely raising the blinds, as the amount to call is less, but for larger pots.

So far, the people who oppose antes can't explain why. They just say "oohh noos, I don't like antes".

The main reason for those of us who want them isn't to speed up the game, its to make the game more like "real tourneys" you'll play if you go to a casino or card room, which some of us do from time to time and will likely be doing more of.

It also will make the pots more significant and make them a target for pot stealing, now som ein the league are capable of pot stealing and some aren't. But, in our league because of the number of fsih who can't seem to fold a face card even if it has a 3 behind it pot stealing becomes a bit of an adventure. So I think this would be a good change to make it more enticing to try more pot stealing than goes on right now. Who knows, it might even entice some restealing, which almost never happens right now.

It's hard to explain why they're good without educating people on how to play better, so it's rough.

I solved this by hosting my own game. "We have antes because that's how I'm doing it." Done and done.

i don't know what things are like where you go and play.... but many real tournaments at real casinos have structures that don't use antes.

I don't know how you think this encourages pot stealing in the scenario you describe. If a player is going to call my steal attempt with any face card when there are no antes. Why do you think he won't make the same call when the pot is bigger?

I'm not against antes....but you aren't selling me on why they would make your game better.

I may have not said it well. I was thinking that it might become more tempting to try more pot-stealing with increased pots. Right now its not really worth it till the blinds are up significantly or the table size is down to like 7 or less.

Maybe thats not the right tack to take then. I love the input you guys give. Keep it coming.

Here's a good reason to use antes, but that only works for convincing the host:

They reward good and bad play alike.

The good players know how to adjust, and the antes are when the tournaments really begin for a lot of people.

The bad players are getting more value for the weaker plays, and their decisions to commit too early are no longer big mistakes with so much dead money. This helps weaker players cash more often, which encourages them to return.

The mediocre players don't know what the heck to do, and they probably suffer the most. The good and bad players thrive.

Again, you can't really say this to the field, but as a host (and a good player), this is my take on it.

Antes make it slightly easier for a short stack with an M of 2 or less to make a comeback to a more reasonable size stack. When you push and get called, instead of just doubling up you triple up. It keeps the short stacks more interested and makes for better stories of how your friend Bob came back from less than one big blind to win the whole thing.

I run an Ante in my home cash game. I run the ante so it lightly discourages people from just sitting there all night.

I run 1/2 + 0.25. This in effect (with a full table of 10) reduces your M factor by approx. 45%. ($100's M is reduced from 33 to 18)

So its play or get grinded away.

Its applicable to tournaments also. You need to more aggressively find your spots to play. Results in more action and quicker tournaments.

I do not antes in home games because several times an hour someone forgets to post and we can't agree on who it is. Not only does the discussion slow down the game but it can spoil the atmosphere.

Additionally, antes often mean an additional layer of small chips left in the game. Some folks like that effect but I find it clutters up the game.

If your players want to play with antes - - - great, but if they don't then don't. There are ample ways to speed up your tournaments without using antes, as noted by earleir posters.

Been there, done that, will not do it again -=- DrStrange

This is a very key point. You really need to know how to organize antes, and run it well. I see many people who should know better do it wrong all the time, and they continue to ignore my advice on how to do it properly.

LEAVE THEM IN FRONT OF THE PLAYER! Make sure everybody is posted, and THEN you start bringing them in. Don't just bring them in and count them, because then you have no idea. And even if you think you know, you have no more physical proof.

As a way to speed it up, once people get used to it, as a player I like to make it a competition between the two sides of the table. If I'm on the south side of the table, I poke my neighbors to get in their antes, and then collect them all for the dealer, with a "South side rules, North side drools!" comment. Half a table's worth of antes is very easy for the dealer to recognize at a glance, and I'm doing oversight. All it takes is a couple of people pushing this along for everybody else to start taking part.

I agree that they can be a headache at first, especially with people who never post them... "It's every hand from right now until you stop playing!" ... but if you take a leadership role and run your game well, you CAN train your players. In the long run antes make for much better games, and is good training for most casino tournaments, so I feel it's worthwhile to push past this hump.

I agree, in our league it is the dealers responsibility to manage the pot unless he is the hand. So with antes it will be the players responsibility to have them posted properly and the dealers job to glance and make sure they are all there then scoop them into the middle before dealing cards.

Of course those of us who have been in the league for a while will be helping by reminding, poking, prodding or whatever is necessary to get this don ein a timely fashion.

Blinds are good in deep-stacked situations where they are small in comparison to later bets.

In the late stages of a tournament where players are very short stacked, using high blinds to create the initial pot is VERY punishing on the players in the blinds. A better balance comes from creating that initial pot with a small contribution from all positions.

Without antes the game revolves around taking the blind at a larger stack size (earlier in the tournament).

Build the starting pot up => more action.

+1
nice.

y have antes in games where there are less than 50 players? If ur having a home game with 20 people then a normal struct should do. Anything with more than 100/200 players then u want to speed it up, including antes.

^^^

You're onto something, but maybe not for the right reasons:

Ante's are not just about speeding up the total time of the game. It allows the game to be divided into two distinct phases, in a similar way that a rebuy tournament has separate phases. Thus, the game can start off slow, giving players time to be cautious and feel like they're getting entertainment for their time. Thus, it can be argued that a tournament with antes offers more entertainment than a tournament without one, even if both tournaments have the same expected duration.

The reason why the usefulness of antes declines with fewer players is because the game gets short-handed sooner, thus reducing the amount by which the pot is bloated. So a one table tourney might not get as much value from the antes, etc.

Agreed that for a one-table tourney, antes make less of a difference, but even 5- or 6-handed, they do make SOME difference, and I'd rather have them than not. For my regular 3-table 7-hour games, I can't imagine the tourney without them. Even a 2-table 5-hour game I'm having next week will utilize them.

Here is our current blind structure for our normal events. The proposal would add antes at the 50/100 level (ante 25)

BLINDS
2,000 Starting Chips

LEVEL MINS SMALL BLIND BIG BLIND ANTE
1 30 5 10 -
2 30 10 20 -
3 30 15 30 -
4 30 20 40 -
5 30 25 50 -
6 30 30 60 -
7 25 50 100 -
8 25 75 150 -
9 25 100 200 -
10 25 125 250 -
11 25 150 300 -
12 25 175 350 -
13 25 200 400 -
14 20 300 600 -
15 20 400 800 -
16 20 500 1000 -
17 20 600 1200 -
18 20 700 1400 -
19 20 800 1600 -
20 20 1000 2000 100
21 20 1200 2400 200
22 - 1500 3000 500
* break after levels 3, 6, 12, & 19


hmmm, my formatting didn't take. sorry for the cluttered look

Instead of an ante from each player, could the same objective be met by having the button ante for the table? Say 2BB?

How many people join your tournament?
My initial reaction is that you never get to the ante level because of the small starting stack and you have your structure capped at level 22.

IMO, I think that it is way too late in the tourny to start the ante. It almost like "F--- this, lets finally get this thing over"

If your objective is to make the pot size the same as if each one posted an ante, yes.

The effect of play is the same? no.
In effect you are really just implementing a mississippi straddle. I am not sure exactly how that would affect tourny play but my gut reaction would be that you are adding more pre-flop positional power to the button.
If you are going to do it that way, why not simply just create 3 blinds? (Double BB, BB and SB)

One of the purposes of the ante in tournaments to create more action and try to limit people from just sitting around. I personally feel that I need to be more involved when I am putting a little something in the pot every hand, instead of, sitting back and having 6-7 free hands to play every orbit.