I assume you're ignoring all of the reasons that the structure does do that, namely that not doing so would result in a lot more work for players, dealers, and floor people?

As Billy alluded to, you can do it online, but when you have physical chips, you either have to keep small chips on the table for an absurd amount of time (and have more of them), which slows down the process due to bet sizing, stack counting, etc.; have very uneven jumps in the structure; or do BB ante. BB ante is a way of having a level that works the same as something like 700/1400/275 or whatever that is simply not workable in a real world live tournament.

This makes no sense. You are implying that if you were going to get 92o on one hand and AA on the other, that you would much rather have AA in the BB since OMG I POSTED THE ANTE THIS HAND, when it makes absolutely no difference to the hand or strategy. Here, obviously, it would be MUCH more beneficial to have AA on the button instead of the BB, even though you posted 2 BB in the BB and 0 chips on the button.

Sidenote: since people seem to continue to think that late game inequities occur during BBA (when in fact they are equal to all of 1 BB per x number of hands, where x is the product of the number of players at each table, which in general can't be fewer than 30 hands, and that this inequity exists in both BBA and regular ante structures), let's just fix the entire problem in all of one sentence:

With 3 tables or fewer, if there are a differing number of players between tables, at a defined interval re-balance the tables by taking the player in the big blind from the table with more players and move them to as close to the big blind as possible at the table with fewer players.

Solve for the interval (Aria uses 20 minutes in high rollers) and the problem no longer exists.

Your perception of chips lost on the hand is wrong imo and here's why:

There is an optimal range of hands for the various actions you can take from the BB, whether it be check, call, 3bet, fold, whatever.

I contend that those ranges should not vary whether the antes were contributed by one person (the BBA) or nine people (traditional). You seem to be saying that your ranges would change in the BB since you contributed two BB to the pot (even though only one is live).

I think you're making a serious error here. No disrespect intended.

I am not particularly distraught about changes that affect variance but not EV for players. I do think some players whine too much about the need to balance tables and it's not quite a huge priority in running a tournament as some make it out to be.

Honestly, if enough players like this, I think there should be some BB ante tournaments and some traditional ante tournaments, even within the same tournament series. There should be turbos and deepstacks. There should be flat payouts and steep payouts.

There's enough to the idea that I think it merits experimentation at significant buy-ins. This may or may not lead to discoveries of unthought-of reasons why a BB ante is a good or bad idea. At the very least, it will end those situations where the dealer figures out there is a missing ante and struggles to determine who is shorting the pot. We can complain that the dealers should do their jobs better, but I think that is probably not a realistic goal.

Table imbalance is not even solely a late-tourney phenomenon. In the event at Wynn on Wednesday, for example, we went at least three orbits (may have been four) in six-handed mode while several other tables were still sitting at eight and nine players. This was sometime after second break, so antes were only 200 if I recall correctly. Our table was broken soon afterwards. But the inequity is still inequity, even when above chip average (as I was at that point of the event)...

Obviously when you get down to two or three tables, the disparity won't be quite so great but will still exist.

As to the issues people tend to claim it prevents, I noted that the same people who had to be reminded to put in their ante seemed to generally got their antes out *except* when it was their big blind. Then they not only delayed getting their blind in but ALSO their ante. Change to BBA for the event would NOT have prevented that problem. I also noted that many dealers were so conditioned to announcing 'blinds and antes' even if they were already out...

The delay was never present when we went hand-for-hand for what seemed a small eternity (during which two minutes was taken off the clock for each hand).

I like BDHarrison's suggestion of including both formats in a given series. I was also appreciative of Wynn staff being willing to hear me out at the end of the day, especially at the fact that I flew out specifically because of the traditional format.

Not at all. I mentioned in a previous post that you could accomplish structure smoothening with the traditional ante system. You asked how. I explained. I didn't say that this is something anyone should be clamoring for. I, for one, don't think structure smoothening is that big a deal.

Workable or not, it is certainly possible. Anyhow, I don't really get why people are so focused on the structure smoothness issue, but that being said, I do agree BB ante is one way of smoothing the structure. To my mind, it is really the only legitimate argument for the BB ante system (that I have heard so far) and is not worth it.

I made no claim as to changes in strategy, proper or not. Its just that, if a particular hand is automatically costing you more, then that hand becomes more consequential. This has nothing to do with what sort of decisions one must make in the blinds positions versus other positions.

By the way, I haven't given it a lot of thought, and I'm guessing it was considered way back when and dismissed... but what if the BB was paid by the button and the SB paid by the Button -1. It seems to me, the spots to the left of the button are already at a big disadvantage position-wise. Why must these positions have the added disadvantage of being required to put more into the pot?

No disrespect taken. Again, not what I am saying at all. I don't know if the BB ante should change anything about how hands play out. I assume it will, because of perception, if nothing else, but am not prepared to say it should.

As for chips lost, this is not perception at all. These are literally chips lost unless one wins the hand. And if one is losing more on a particular hand because of a change in rules, then this is consequential.

The vocal proponents of the BB ante have not been talking about it like it will become some new variant of poker with equal representation amongst other variants. They have been talking about it like it will be the new thing instead of the old thing. And if it takes hold, I am inclined to believe them.

As for the "situation" you mentioned... that is just a rare thing that happens. Really, as far as factors slowing down poker hands... problems with ante collection are near the bottom.

And as for experimentation, in general I agree that objective analysis is necessary. However, one still needs to have a clear view of what one is measuring. My fear is whatever experimentation will actually occur (ie more than just, "do you like it"), will do little more than measure whether or not, and how much, the new system fundamentally changes how poker hands play out. As I've mentioned before, in my experimentation with the ante-collection process, I found that completely eliminating ante collection would gain between 1-2 hands per hour at a typical table. Let's assume there is variance in dealer quality, player attention span, etc and errors in my experiment could be as much as 100%, with actual hands per hour gains potentially being 2-4.

I still say, "so what", however many vocal proponents have talked about seeing "tons" of hands more with the BB ante and some have even suggested that they gained more the 5+ with this system. With those kinds of numbers either A) the person is delusional, or bad at counting, B) the dealers they are playing with are truly incompetent, or C) The BB ante fundamentally changes how hands play out, leading to shorter hands (ie fewer players, rivers, decisions, etc.).

I would be inclined to believe (A) or (C). If (A), then again we are dealing with an issue being driven, not by truth, but by some sort of psychological event. And if (C), then that makes for an interesting discussion. But then it has little to do with time savings and more to do with changing the game for some as-of-yet undisclosed reason.

A little off topic, but in line with discussion of inequities and choosing battles... a few years ago there was some debate about the play-down structure of the Aria WPT 500. That event had like 6+ starting flights. Each flight played down to 5% of the remaining field and then all players were combined for day 2. However, it wasn't a situation where the clock was marked at the end of flight A and all subsequent flights stopped at the same time. Each flight played down to 5% no matter how long it took. Some starting flights played literally 1-2 more levels than others. Talk about inequity!

Anyhow, this format was protested by myself (and Allen Kessler, actually.. who would have thought ). I didn't like it, obviously, because of the huge potential inequity. I don't remember exactly why Allen didn't like it, but it was probably something along the same lines. Anyhow, I didn't understand why they were doing it this way. It took more pleading with Matt Savage than one would think would be necessary, but he finally explained... the flights needed to go really deep on day one in order to eliminate enough players, just to fit everyone on day 2. But for some flights, going beyond 5% meant getting down to less than 2 full tables, which would cause all sorts of table balance and short-handed play issues for players in that flight. So, the 5% was chosen to accomplish the player elimination goal, without messing up the end of the flight, which would have occurred if all flights played down to 2:00am or whatever.

So, here was an example of a clear inequity which was created due to structure decisions. And if one feels really strongly about the inequity, then one can obviously avoid this event. However, at least the cause of the inequity makes sense. Its unavoidable for a tournament of that size and number of day ones, given their logistical constraints.

If the BB ante had as clear-cut and unavoidable reason for being used, I think I would be less inclined to worry about the inequities it causes. But that is obviously not the case. It seems to be little more than a solution in search of a problem.

Copied from another thread:

Until this perception changes, we're going to see backlash against BBA.

You're NOT putting in double the big blind. You're still putting in one big blind. Your also putting in 1/9th of the antes for that orbit, just like you would do at traditional antes...but it takes 1/9 of the time to collect the antes now.

(Yes, there is a potential inequity if your table is short relative to the other tables. Fortunately, this is rare during the mid stages and the difference is small - 11.1% vs 12.5%. It is why I would support a reversion to traditional ante once the field is less than 3 tables...when the players are more alert and the dealers are typically better.)

If we're playing traditional ante, and you're in the BB, and I open for 3BB, it's 2BB to call. With BBA, it's the exact same 2BB to call. If you elect to widen your calling range "because you've invested more in this pot," you're making a mistake.

When you post a BBA, you're sort of "loaning" an ante to the other players at the table. They pay you back when it's their turn to post.

I won't post anymore on the topic, as I just don't care that much. I prefer playing with antes, and I prefer they be BBA, but either way is fine. I do think it makes things faster, though. I just can't understand all the hand-wringing going on about it.

There's no backlash and its all about the structure. This may be apples and oranges but check out these 2 tournaments,Wynn Seniors 400 and Aria 240.

Total the cost per round through the first 7-8 levels and count as to which takes more chips which are secondary to the structure. At about level #9 the conventional ante begins to cost more . The first 8 levels are "slower", so to speak and I'm not sure as to how many will have busted out at that point, but the structure with 100's as the base chip the take away is larger and in some sense speedier . You have to look and see whether there is a one to one correspondence between the old and the new structure and most likely there isn't but can be.

I know this is between 2 sites with difference in buy ins and also to your point people can and do, usually, bet a percentage of the pot or a percentage of the blinds in the first bet but as the hand goes on, it is definitely a percentage of the pot and with the big blind ante i don't see how it is any different. There is no such thing as "dead antes" or "dead money".

Its all about the structure which is changed , not about the pitching of the antes .

https://www.visitwynn.com/documents/Seniors_Event.pdf

https://www.aria.com/en/casino/poker.html

I decided to repeat the experiment I ran which produced the results in this post...

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...4&postcount=66

Here are the results this time around...

My methodology:

Similar to before. The venue and tourney structure were different (30 min blinds instead of 50). I collected data over the course of 5 full 30 minute levels with antes of 100 and 200 in that timeframe. I used the tournament clock in front of me for timing. I waited till the dealer finished their shuffle and put the deck down to start timing. I stopped timing when the dealer picked the deck back up to either cut or deal. Here are the results.

Total time of play: 150 minutes
# hands played: 77 (30.8/hr, 1.95 min/hand)

Ante collection:

high: 26 sec. (this occurred once)
low: 5 sec. (this occurred 7 times, all during 100 chip antes)
total: 626 sec (10.4 min.)
average = 8.1 sec.

So, the total % of time being spent collecting antes was 10.4/150 or 6.9%.


Takeaways:

1) This tourney played out a bit differently from the previous one. For starters, it was 9-handed vs 10. Also, my table happened to play 1 or 2 players short for a large chunk of time. I think both of these factors led to the a-typically high hands/hour numbers and probably also depressed the ante-collection time a bit as well. Lastly, there seemed to be somewhat less action in this event compared to the other. I'm guessing this is mainly because I was doing the experiment later in the event, but of course that is a pretty highly variable factor.

2) We had about 5 dealers during my experiment. One was definitely less proficient than the others and compared to my previous experiment, but none of them were bad. Overall I would rate the dealers a bit better than I would experience in a mega-tourney.

3) The players were actually less attentive than my previous experiment. There was even one who probably posted his ante in a timely fashion about half the time.

4) Once again, the collection of antes proved to be an insignificant factor when it came to how long hands took to play.

Again, my experiment is not scientific, but I think my methodology is sound. Ante collection does not take very much time. And eliminating antes doe not save very much time at all. Changing structures and gameplay... well that is another story.

Crossposting from the WSOP thread, curious what people's thoughts on Button Ante are as compared to BB Ante:

I was already planning on playing the Binion's Main Event, and I pulled up the structure and they are doing Button Ante. I think maybe that might be something that adds the benefits of the BB ante, while at least somewhat mitigating the bad feeling of getting moved into the BB when shortstacked in BB ante. I had thought of proposing that before, but then decided it wouldn't work, because sometimes there is a dead button, but never a dead BB. Binion's rule is if there is a dead button, there just isn't an ante that hand.

The antes start from level 1, and they have "cost per orbit" on their structure sheet, and the increases are pretty consistently smooth throughout. Looking forward to firing this one for sure (if I'm not busy winning Milly Maker heh).

I realized yesterday that the term double-up will cease to exist with BB Ante. You will no longer be able to win what you put into the pot... These seem like fundamental game changes to me.

Here's an issue I hadn't thought of that came up the other day at the Wynn. Guy loses all but a single 100 chips utg+1. Next hand he puts it in blind utg. We are playing 600-1200 with a 1200 big blind ante. He wins against the 2 blinds and 1 other player. He now has 1600 from his 100 chip, 100 from each of the 4 of them, plus the 1200 in antes. Obviously not going to happen a lot, but when it does, seems a bit off.

Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Another ding against BBA. Not a huge one, but still yet another wart. And I continue to hear crickets when it comes to people talking about the real benefits of the system that make all the warts worthwhile.

Interesting anecdote from this year's vegas tournaments.. I was playing with a guy and the topic of BBA came up when we were chatting about the Wynn. I asked him if he had played any of their events and he said he had and he liked the BBA. I asked him what he liked about it and, predictably, he mentioned how much faster the game was. I asked him to define faster and he had a hard time doing so. I suggested that eliminating the time it takes to collect antes adds somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 hands per hour and he actually said, "yeah, that sounds about right". And then he agreed that this was not really a significant gain. But he said it "felt" a lot faster, even if it wasn't. And he contended that it was worth it since there's no downside. I then told him about the table imbalance inequity issue discussed in this thread, and also the issue of being moved into the BB when short stacked. And he admitted he hadn't thought of that, and could see how it would be really annoying, and how some players might try to bend the rules to avoid the situation. And then we talked about how it might fundamentally change how the game is played if people start tightening up. So, basically we talked about all the various issues with the BBA, including some of the benefits, like structure-smoothening.

Now, I have no idea how this guy would answer the question "Do you prefer the BBA over the standard format" now. But he definitely seemed a lot more ambivalent after thinking and talking about it. And I think that's exactly how the majority of the poker community... probably the vast majority, would feel if this issue were actually honestly presented and debated. They would be ambivalent, either somewhat preferring the BBA or somewhat being against it. And that's what the BBA is in reality... a change that improves some things a little, and makes other things a little worse. BBA doesn't make the game better. It just makes it different. It is not a revolution. And it is not something that should be treated as such by anyone. But, of course, that is not at all what we have seen with the pro BBA folks.

I agree with akashnek.To me big blind ante tournaments doesnt make much sense. Why not use the no ante tournament structure. I play no ante tournaments at Stones Gambling Hall in California and they play very well.

There is also the issue with BBATs regarding super short stacks on the big blind. That is do the antes go in first or do the big blind go in first? It can make a diffence if the BB wins. If they only have enough to cover the ante then thats all they will get back is the ante. However if it goes in as part of the blind then they can win much more.

I think BBA tournaments need to go away. Adding dilemmas to the game makes no sense, even if adds one or two hands per hour. Especially when there is a better solution of just running no ante tournaments.

I never had any issues with putting in an ante. If others do, dealers or players, thats a training issue.

Here is how antes could change to non-standard amounts to make for smoother jumps in orbit costs. After level 5, the average cost per orbit goes up 27.4%, but in traditional blind/ante combinations, this can vary from 14% increase to 66% increase. A suggestion makes these jumps smoother with increases from 22% to 33% with only 2.69% deviation from average vs 11.11% deviation from average using traditional ante amounts.

I have no problem with the BB ante concept. It's clearly an advantage in that it saves time and with competent dealers should always result in players getting more hands in.

However, I have played several of these now at PH, Wynn, Aria, Rio/WSOP and elsewhere and the problem is in the way the BB antes are being structured. The antes are being started too early and are also too large. In other words, rooms are using the advent of this new structure to "turbo-ize" their tournaments. Some more so than others. Take the 4 pm WSOP/Rio Daily DS--that tournment is a shadow of what it used to be in terms of structure now that it is a BB ante, unless you like turbos.

I won't present examples and math (I'll leave that for others with more 2+2 time than I have) but in every event I've played, it's clear that the structures need tweaking (reducing amount of antes and possibly starting them later) to retain the original speed of the tournament.

Why do you think they are too large? In the events I have played, the total ante is less than or equal to the total antes in a "traditional" format.

For example, at 200/400, usually the ante is 50, meaning the total antes are normally 450-500. But with BB ante, it is 400. Or at 600/1200, usually the ante is 200, meaning the total is 1800-2000, but here is 1200.

And the 4PM DDS had more S-points than the 2PM despite the 2PM starting with more chips. The 2PM didn't have BBA, btw.

So it doesn't seem like your examples are accurate.

i think the "s" points are a function of when the starting chips equal the big blind in the tournament. Plog can tell us if this is so.

In that case the poster has come to the same conclusion that I've calculated previously such that the early rounds are more turbo, even if later on the tournament levels out respective to blinds.

And so , early on, the blinds in the conventional system go slower but as mentioned , do at some point become speeder than the big blind ante as used by the tournament venues (Aria, Wynn and WSOP).

I believe that Chris , at the Planet Hollywood, did present a system that was equivalent.

The point is that the Big Blind Ante is not the structure and the tournament director can and does adjust his system in so far as "mandated loss" with respect to the blinds is concerned.

Again the Big Blind Ante System is not the structure, "is not the structure", and merely a fillip of illusion that in fact has more negatives than the conventional system.

The way the big blind ante systems used at those main venues, on the whole, as per the noted subscriber, are fixated with bigger blinds and antes early just as he experienced.

That and the fact that the 25 chips are sent to the corner thus insuring an increased betting level right off the bat(100's are the lowest common denominator). LOL

Sorry, the subscriber is "Sabrejack" .

That is one large component, but not the only. It also factors in how fast and smooth the antes/blinds are increasing from level to level.

From what I saw this year looking at structure sheets, big blind ante tournaments were smoother and had smaller orbit costs (blinds + antes for 1 orbit) at comparative levels for non-Planet Hollywood tournaments. Honestly, I just think they didn't know how to do it this year or maybe they wanted to push the big blind ante tournaments to seem better since they were new.

Apples to apples, you need to look at the results of Planet Hollywood tournaments to see if players liked big blind antes or regular structures. Most Planet Hollywood big blind tournaments had a regular structure tournament at the exact price point with nearly identical S-points. Instead of anecdotes and conjecture, compare how those tournaments did and how long they lasted and you have actual evidence.

What happens if the button only has enough to pay the ante?

Anyone who would fly to Vegas merely to play in an ante tourney has taken the anti-BBA crusade to a new level. It’s some increased variance but over time it evens out for all players and doesn’t effect your long term EV.

You’ll note that almost all full time players prefer BBA and mostly older people who play every so often don’t. It’s mostly the crowd with less than 15k in lifetime winnings and hate anything they feel will work against their nitty style of play even in a single tourney.

I’m sorry you couldn’t fold into a mincash at the Wynn because of that evil BBA.

This is manure and I'll speak to one part;First off, the idea that it all evens out in the long run is statistical manure for it certainly would take more than an individual's yearly activity in tournaments to reach this long run. Again manure.

Its a discussion of the merits or lack thereof of this system and its drawbacks are evident and there are even more. To disparage those who don't agree with you by calling them "losers", or old or nitty is also manure.

If you really want to compare the old and the new compare the structures and it becomes evident that the structure(s) is unrelated to the ante(s) .

Specifically the WSOP could have increased the starting chips across the board and would have increased the value of the tournaments whether "S" or other. The players would not have to be concerned with the "even out on the long run" and tournament strengths would have improved markedly.

The above would have been player friendly but of course some players like to play fast with fewer chips and so its not overwhelming. yada,yada,yada,....

I’m not sure how old you are, or whether or not you are a “full time player”, or what your lifetime winnings are. And I’m equally unsure of what any of that has to do with analyzing the BBA. But I’m guessing you are old enough, play enough poker and have won enough money to be capable of looking at and processing the information contained in a calendar. So I’m wondering why you chose a post which is nearly a year old to troll?