Arrgh. This is a weirdly worded title.

The basic question is this:

Do you guys prefer antes where every player at the table puts in a small amount ala seven card stud? or do you prefer when it's a "position ante" and by that I mean the button pays an extra big ante or the big blind pays almost double.

I seem to be used to and prefer the "erryone in a hand puts it in" but it seems the "position" ante is a thing now.

I guess it's all the same in to the other players who aren't the ante cos the pot is still juicier.

But I still like the thought of all of youse putting something in every hand.

Psychologically it makes a difference, mathematically it doesnt.

I assume you are speaking about cash games, not tournaments.

From the room's perspective, they would prefer to have a someone put in a position ante. That's only one person to remind each hand and easier for the dealer to enforce. As a player, the person who has to be continually reminded to put in their blind or the action is on them now has a third way to slow down the game if they have put in an ante each hand. I prefer not to give them the third opportunity.

It makes more sense in stud as the order of who acts first can change from street to street whereas in flop games it remains constant - if holdem/omaha were to be antes only you'd likely see it become even more positional than it already is as the first couple of positions aren't getting a discount on seeing a flop

/thread, psychology is a sum of cognitive biases, why would a poker player care?

the only real difference is position ante is speeding up the game, which is always desirable in a horribly slow live setting

Makes a huge difference if every player puts in an ante and the spots in the game have a VPIP of 40% compared to having one player pay ante for the table where the spots still have a 40% VPIP unless they are the ante in which case their VPIP skyrockets to 80%+.

Everything that encourages bad players to make extra mistakes is a good thing.

Cool thanks for the replies, I didn't think about the part of having to remind the person to put in their ante. Woops, got used to online doing it automatically.

Plus, I thought too that the position ante might be the new way of doing things. Just curious.

Made a slight mistake while posting late last nite, as Madlex pointed out there is DEFINITELY a mathematical difference in the two.

I guess I was mainly going with the mental aspect of say being in the 13-20ish blind level and you're putting in a tenth of the big blind every hand which decreases the amount of a double up for a shove with each hand. Maybe this creates a sense of urgency rather than going "well, I can wait at least four hands until the blind / ante so I can wait for a better hand"


Something like that.