As a dealer (and player), I think BB ante I think BB ante is without a doubt a big improvement.

The only thing is that (since most casual players are new to this) I have to explain to them that if they’re all in in the BB and don’t have enough to cover the ante, they can only win back the lesser amount that they’ve anted.

While a huge time saver compared to getting antes from every person in live play, I dont really see the point of a bb ante. Just change the sb/bb ratio from 1-2 to 1-3, then its not dead money and the cost of play is higher. Or just get rid of antes in tournaments intended to last less than a day.

I always understood (one of) the point(s) of antes was to create an incentive for the non-blind hands to play rather than sit, which is not accomplished with bb ante.

The incentive to play is created by the existence of dead money in the pot due to the antes. This is true, whether it is individual antes or bb ante.

lol

lol dude answered his own question lol

There should be consequences for starting threads like this

i dont care much since i do not play often anymore, but i do think its hysterical that poker players treat the idea of BBA as if its this insane scientific break through. i fully expect many dissertations and PhDs to come from this break through

I don’t know a single person who treats them as anything but a pretty efficient way to speed up the game a little bit. “Pace of play” is among the biggest issues in live poker tournaments and big blind antes help with that.

Finally a true poker player with a brain!

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if some players are playing as if there were no antes because its a bb ante then it makes it better for good players, get to take down the dead money more often

Perhaps but DUCY that's not always the case?

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So you think there’s less incentive to play if there’s 2.5BB dead money in the pot compared to when there’s 2.5BB dead money in the pot? Hmkay.

Not sure if this whole thread is a huge troll or if you are really that clueless. In the latter case, please play more tournaments!

lol

BB ante has it's advantages and disadvantages. I've never noticed that much delay with collecting antes from each player. But it is an advantage to get lower denomination chips off the table sooner.

The biggest disadvantage in my mind is that it increases the unfairness of situations where tables get broken and some players are forced to post two BBs in a row, and other players get almost two full rounds of hands free. This also increases the incentive to angle-shoot how quickly a player joins their new table. And generally speaking, I'm not in favor of rules changes that benefit angle-shooters.

This problem could be alleviated if tournament directors developed a way to make sure that players from broken tables were seated in new seats in approximately the same position as they left their old table. But this might be difficult in big, live tournaments.

Another options would be to give new players coming from broken tables the option to wait until the button passes before they are dealt in. This would slightly advantage new players at the table, who would be guaranteed a few free hands, but these players are arguably at an immediate disadvantage already of not having seen any of the previous table dynamics.

Your comments are crisp and fair, but flawed in some cases

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I don't think this is a troll. Sure, it's incorrect, but I can see how people could possibly think like this.
A pot you haven't physically put a chip into will be less attractive to some players who don't understand what makes up the BBA

I totally agree that it’s very possible some people don’t understand initially. But if you keep making the same point over and over after at least 10 people told you that you are completely wrong and even showed you why?

@NickMPK: you are totally right, but those are strictly procedural challenges. Nevertheless, they obviously need to be addressed and I am optimistic that the WSOP will have figured that out before the start of the series.
[or things go South, chainsaw will complain and they try to fix it mid-series]

Ahha, someone is starting to get it!

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These people who dont understand are where the principal behind the saying "if you can't spot the sucker in the first few minutes then the sucker is you" comes from. Therefore these are the very people you want playing in your games.

like that right there is my only oncern, how peope are ok and chalk it up to variance, etc is complete and utter bull****.

that **** shouldnt happen.

I don't think that situation is unfair.

It is unfair to me if it benefits angle-shooters at the expense of people who are trying to play honestly.

I don't think it benefits angle-shooters. I've never been able to tell what position I am going to end up in before leaving my broken table. There are people who will delay moving as much as possible because they just want to miss as many hands as possible, but I can't seem them figuring out how to time it so that they just miss being dealt into the big blind. Any dawdling seems just as likely to cause them to miss a few free chances to steal before being dealt into the big blind, especially if they are in a large tournament where they have to move to a table on the other side of the room.

Well said.

Just because you aren't one of the the angle shooters doesn't mean they don't exist.

In any case, having to pay the big blind twice in a row just -feels- unfair to a lot of players. It is not literally unfair in the sense that all players have an equal chance of being put in this positions (except those actively trying to avoid it). But it still feels that way, and adds to the sense of frustration that many people get from tournaments. BB ante makes this frustration at least twice as bad. Perhaps you don't personally find this situation frustrating, but many people do, and if you are trying to design a better tournament, you should listen to the concerns of the entire tournament audience.