Mods feel free to move or delete if already addressed.

Looks like the WSOP will be bringing the big blind ante into play for a few events, and not all of them are big buy-ins. A few smaller bracelet events, two of the daily deep stacks and all of their mega satellites.

https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-new...events-in-2018

Crazy! Not sure what I think as I've only played one tournament (at the LAPC) with this in place. I didn't last too long so I didn't get to really experience this approach.

There are no $200 or $150 deepstacks though the buyins are $365, 235, 185, and 135.

Theyve changed the buy ins and times per WSOP twitter (see WSOP thread).

How do they decide who has to pay the ante? Is it always UTG?

The big blind pitches the ante..

What's not to like about the Big Blind Ante?

You get more hands per hour and the dealer doesn't have to remind everyone each hand to put in the ante.

Other than just hating change, what are some things NOT to like about the Big Blind Ante?

Aside from the fact that those of us not in favor of it have been ignored in every other thread about this (and to ask the question just shows those discussions are ignored), anyone claiming it means dealers are not on people to post simply have not been listening.

When I played a Seniors event last week, rare was the instance that people had to be prodded for their ante. Blinds required prodding on more instances than antes...

The number of hands gained by eliminating ante collection is minuscule because the amount of time required to collect antes is minuscule. It’s literally on the order of ~10 seconds on average based in my investigations. Even if one accounts for variance, it’s simply not going to ever amount to be a significant portion of the time that hands take to play. People who believe that lots of time is saved are experiencing some sort of confirmation bias or just selective memory combined with impatience.

The bb ante may change the dynamics of play, which may lead to shorter hands, but that is really a separate argument and has nothing to do with the ante collection process.

The bb ante also exacerbates existing inequities caused by unbalanced tables and table break procedures. In general, players playing at a short-handed table will be paying more per hand (on average, of course) with the bb ante than they would be with the traditional ante, and that is already more than those playing with fuller tables. And, if one is really short stacked late in a tourney and are suddenly moved to a spot where they’re paying 2x+ what one would under the traditional ante, one might reconsider the mythical time savings benefit everyone supposedly thinks exists. This will lead to increased incidents of people bending rules to avoid the bb.

In the end, I have come out against it because there simply aren’t very many compelling reasons for it and several reasons why it is not good. At best it’s a change that may make some things marginally better, and other things marginally worse. So, instead of looking at it as being against change, I can make the case that the people for it are either looking to make change for change’s sake, or their real motivations for liking it have nothing to do with ante collection procedures or process improvement, but rather they like the way it changes the way hands play out. I have always said, if that’s the case, then they should make their arguments for this change based on that, in other words what’s really being changed, instead of the mythical significant time being saved by eliminating ante collection.

I played my first BBA tournament at Lucky Chances recently. The good players liked it and the bad players hated it. This made the BBA discussion very useful for getting a read on players since I had never played at Lucky Chances before. ;-)

More seriously the game flow seemed faster and smoother to me. Also since the table ante was always set as equal to the BB, the initial dead money was smaller which made the tournament play out a bit longer (according to some regs I spoke with) which, when combined with more hands per level, meant the skill factor was higher. I made the final table (taking 6th) and it seemed to me that everyone at the final table was at least a decent player which is generally not the case.

Tiniest possible sample size of course, but I liked it.

I get it; assuming that there was a 10% payout one can assume that 90% of the players hated the big blind ante and 10% liked it ?

And/Or:

Only good players cash because they are good players and non good players do not cash, or win.

And/Or:

You are happy because you cashed, which most people are, and this affected your mood and approach to the big blind ante.

Congrats!

Last time I discussed it at a table I was talking to a horrible player who loved it. and I while I would not say I "hate" the idea... I am definitely opposed to it at this time. I don't normally go around rating myself, but I am not a horrible player. Whether that means I am "good" or not isn't particularly relevant. In any case, I don't think a player's skill level has an baring on whether or not they prefer the format... Unless, of course, a skillful player has figured out a way to exploit a lesser-skilled one using the BBA.

It doesn't surprise me if things "seemed faster", since a step that each player must make each hand is eliminated. The question is.. how much faster is it in reality? And in reality, its not much faster... on the order of 10 second/hand, or less than (often significantly less than) 10% of the time it takes to play a hand. Considering all of the things that go into how long hands take to play, you would not "feel" a 10% difference. So what you are "feeling" is the simplification of the process.. not actual time-savings. If the BBA ante system had no drawbacks, even a cosmetic improvement or simplification might be worth it. But that is not the case with the BBA.

If the hands/hr rate is increased significantly (I would say on the order of 15%+) with the BBA, then it will be due to the format decreasing action. In other words, fewer hands will be contested as highly as they are under the traditional ante. I have always suspected that this, in combination with the reduced forced contribution when the antes are only equal to the BB, would slow down the break-down rate of events, dragging them out. Its hard to say how much of a factor this is, or if a larger volume of hands dampens this factor. But if tourneys take longer to complete I cannot see how any venue would be in favor of it, regardless of its "popularity", seeing as this would represent a direct negative economic impact. If the break-down rate is indeed diminished under the BBA, I could see TDs altering structures in other ways (level lengths, skipping levels, etc) to compensate. This inevitability would seem to counter-act the belief "good" players have that the BBA will increase their advantage.

This has been used in the Aria high rollers for at least a couple of years. It is a definite improvement imo since:

- saves time - 10s/hand is 5 minutes per hour, i.e. 2.5 hands/hour
- reduces hassle for players/dealers in making change
- one less thing to distract the dealer
- none of those annoying situations where there's one player at the table who is always slow to post
- less chip denominations required

I've played ~10 tourneys with BBA and didn't experience any significant disadvantages. Obviously you have to adjust play when short-stacked/short-handed but I don't see that as a downside.

They're paying more per hand and winning more per hand. That's not a problem, its just another factor to adjust to. BBA increases the disadvantage of short-stacked players at short-handed tables near the bubble, but at that stage tables are kept closely balanced.

You're two statements are not consistent. The first is more realistic imo.

just treat BBA as a third bb tourney.

Change is hard. No question that only having one person at the table ante, and that person is already posting the BB saves some time and makes life easier for the dealer.

The short-handed table scenario and being moved to a new table where you get the BB/Ante position sooner are drawbacks.

When short stacked late, you get more hands to wait to shove since you are not bleeding ante chips every hand, and your shove/fold decision becomes much more tilted toward shove when the BB/Ante is coming around, but this cuts both ways.

As far as pot size, looking at the structures for the daily Golliath events for June, which are sometimes BBA and sometimes traditional, at the 300/600 blind level, the traditional format has a 75 ante (certainly the most time-consuming and change-making instance of the ante), so at a 9-handed table the antes total 675 vs. 600 with the Button Ante, so not a difference that is going to make anyone play differently.

At 1000/2000 the ante in the traditional format is 300, so at 9-handed table the antes total 2700 as opposed to 2000 for BBA format. Total dead money at start of hand is 5700 vs. 5000. Is that enough of a difference to matter? Certainly if you're the BB you are invested 4000 in the hand, which may prompt some players to defend their BB/Ante more often, even though it's just dead money regardless of whether it all came from your stack that hand, so that might generate more action, but doubtful that anyone will play the hand much differently. Maybe opening raise is to 6000 rather than 5000 to match the amount in the pot, but will that really matter much?

On balance, I would not make the change because I don't think it helps that much (except the dealers), but I don't think the downsides are huge so it's not going to bother me (until I'm the guy with the short stack and the BB/Ante is coming around fast).

Cliff Notes: Change is tough, some people hate it and some people don't.

I am in favor of it.

I am not aware of any full ring game (ie 9+ handed) that regularly gets 30 hands per hour) It’s closer to 20-25. And in my experimentation, eliminating antes gained between 1-2 hands per hour. Your numbers aren’t drastically off, but even they aren’t that impressive.

The rest of your bullet points are pretty much all the same argument. The BBA simplifies things. Ok, that is a given since you are eliminating a step. But it’s not that complicated a step. Again, if there were no drawbacks, even a small step and a minor simplification might be ok.

As for my two statements, the first was reflective of what I found when I looked into how long it actually takes to collect antes. The second was conjecture, based on the supposition that the BBA may reduce action, in the sense that pots will be contested less. This is really the only way that you might see a significant uptick in hands per hour (15%+ in my conjecture) since there simply isn’t enough time to be saved just by eliminating the ante collection. So if in the real world we do see a significant uptick in hands, it will be because the dynamics of the game have changed, and not because antes collection has been greatly reduced.

In another thread on this topic I put forth a couple ideas for other ante-less formats which provide all of the ante-collection time savings of the BBA (and even more) and don’t exacerbate inequities as much as the BBA, but may not provide the same dynamics changes. I really feel it’s this last thing that most of the proponents of the BBA “love”, and they just use the other mythical reasons as argument since those are easier to grasp. My guess is this is because lesser skilled players will see neither the inherent drawbacks of the BBA, nor the increased advantage higher skilled players might achieve with it, and will be happy to go through life “feeling” like the BBA is so much simpler/faster.

The real truth about the BBA is that it offers a small improvement in one area, while exacerbating inequities in another. This is not the hallmark of a change that anybody ought to be clamoring for, unless, of course the real change it brings about has nothing to do with all of the things people keep talking about (time savings, simplification, etc.) I have yet to hear a single TD’s perspective on the business case for the BBA. I don’t think there is much of one, other than placating a likely minority of particularly vocal players. And if we do see the BBA cause a slow-down in the break-down speed of tournaments (as has been described by some and makes sense, theoretically), I imagine you’ll see TDs start to take a very different view of it. I mean, even if it slowed things down by only 3%, that would be something on the order of 30-60 minutes of manpower for many events. Considering how thin poker margins are, I wouldn’t think they would see that as an improvement at all.

You keep saying that you can replicate the smoothness of the BBA structures with your "anteless" proposal, but the simple fact of the matter is that you cannot do it in the real world with physical chips and have reasonable stacks on the table.

And when you don't have reasonable stacks on the table, counting down allin bets takes a long time, and then when you finally color off the small denomination chips that takes a long time because of how many small denom chips you need to have antes that are 250 or whatever.

Take a look at the WSOP $200 deepstack with BBA structure. Start with 15k chips, and don't need 25 chips ever even on the table, first level is 100/100, next is 100/100/100. This speeds up much more than just the actual "anteing" process.

I again played a rec tournament last Sunday night, and the ante process itself was again brutal. It was a $125 tourney with $25 bounties and people were drinking, etc. The process of collecting the antes, especially during the 50 and 75 ante levels, was pretty rough, even with the dealers being pretty on top of it. A few extra hands makes a big difference in a tourney like this with 20 minute levels. This type of tourney (and the $200 deepstack as another example) are great tournaments for the BBA.

I'm in Vegas June 6-15 and can't wait to play a couple of BBA tournaments. I may change my tune after playing it, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Really, suffering under the old system, geez and wow.

Actually, I mentioned it once, simply to make the case that the "roughness" of the traditional ante structure compared to the BBA only exists because of the color up schedule. I agree that changing the color-up to smooth out the structure would introduce some inconveniences (though I think the example you cite of how long it takes to count down stacks is a bigger stretch than how long it takes to collect antes). But, still, this sort of change would have some potential warts. I am not advocating for it. But if smoothness of structure were that important to me, this would be one option which doesn't exacerbate any inequities like the BBA. That being said, smoothness of structure is not that big a deal to me since it affects all players equally.


I am not inherently opposed to ante-less structures. I am just generally opposed to the BBA. If a structure were developed with two full blinds or even three blinds, I think that might be ok. And the "need" for $25 chips has little to do with the ante. I mean, any tournament, even ones with traditional antes, can start w/o $25 chips. It just changes the level at which antes begin, and obviously the blind levels. But these things can be accounted for with the starting stack. So the $25 chip is almost irrelevant. However, if blinds are what they traditionally are, then I personally like to have $25 chips since it allows more precise raises. In fact, one of my gripes about certain color-up processes is that they make it impossible to make precise raises. This has nothing to do with antes.

I have never claimed that my poker experience is universal, but I have played a lot of live poker, and the vast majority of it has been in "rec" tournaments, where players are less skilled and certainly drinking and paying attention to all sorts of other things besides what's going on at the table. I don't believe, in nearly 15 years of playing live poker, that I have ever left a tourney feeling like, "man, the ante process was brutal". This is not to say that something like that would be impossible. It just doesn't seem like the typical experience, since I haven't even experienced it once in well over a decade.

In the last tournament where I tracked the ante-ing process closely, something occurred which I think is lost on many people who gripe about those occasions when players need to be reminded to post. There was a player who simply wasn't paying attention. He had to be reminded probably on the order of 4-5 times out of 10. Compared to some of what are likely exaggerations claimed by many on this topic, having to be reminded half the time to post an ante is actually a "huge" amount (a complete outlier, but still real). I am not exaggerating how often it occurred. The thing is... it didn't really delay things much except on a small number of those many hands. This is because the ante-ing process is not serial. The dealer does turn to players one by one, requesting they post their antes and waiting for them to do so. The vast majority of the ante-ing process occurs while the dealer is preparing the deck for the next hand. Likewise the vast majority of friendly reminders and player to player change-making occurs during this time as well. Eliminating antes has no affect on this period since it occurs while the dealer is doing something else. This is why these sorts of delays are far less important. Eliminating antes doesn't actually affect the real time being spent.

There are really only two things that lead to real and potentially significant delays in the ante-ing process... 1) when there is confusion as to whether someone posted or not and 2) needing to make change. As for #1, this can lead to large delays (on the order of 20+ seconds), but is something which happens so rarely that it isn't something that deserves much consideration. If it is not happening rarely in a particular tournament, that is a floor control issue, not an ante-ing issue.

As for #2, the need to make change, this is driven by the distribution of smaller chips at the table, which is fairly random in tournaments. However, this issue can be mitigated by players helping one another out. And even with this being a real cause of some delay, it still only leads to the ante process taking on the order of 10 seconds on average. So, while a potential problem, this does not rise to a level requiring mitigation.

Anyhow, sure, three are times when things slow down during the ante-ing process, even enough to become annoying. But these times are few and far between. There are so many other things that go on during play that lead to 90% plus of the delays during hands... Hollywood-ing, not knowing its your action, slow decision-making/confusion, arguing about rules and play, plain old being a d|ck, etc. just to name a few.

Lastly, I have also never claimed that there is no place for the BBA and it should never be implemented. If a venue wants to use it in more "turbo-ish" events where even a 5-10% improvement in hands/hour might be more important, I am fine with that. But that is not what has been advocated for here on 2+2 and by some TDs. Most are arguing it should replace the traditional ante in all events, and in some cases, TDs have basically gone and done that.

I too will be in Vegas this summer and will try a BBA event, just to say I did. I don't feel like the experience is likely to change my mind. This is because I understand what the potential drawbacks and benefits of the change are and the potential benefits do not overcome the potential drawbacks sufficiently to make the change. And if the "break-down" lag effect comes to fruition, this will be an absolute nail in the coffin for me on this issue. Tournaments do not need to be taking longer to complete as far as I'm concerned.

Pretty much the most optimistic thing I can say is, I might play the structure and figure out some way to take advantage of it. That would be a benefit to me, of course. But I like to think, the changes I advocate for in poker are not simply ones which will benefit me or some number of players at the expense of some other number of players. Changes of this type ought to benefit the majority, and perhaps even the vast majority, of players if they are going to be made. I don't think the BBA comes close to reaching that standard.

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 didn't want to respond line-by-line since we have had this discussion before, and maybe we can continue it after we both play it in June, but I'm curious on this:

Why is it OK that smoothness of structure issues are OK with you because "they affect all players equally", but the "inequities" of the BBA are not OK even though they also affect all players equally?

And I will just say, as you think the pro-BBA crowd exaggerates the benefits of BBA, so do I think the anti-BBA crowd exaggerates the drawbacks of BBA.

I haven't though about it a great deal, but off the top of my head I think a button ante would be better than the BBA from an inequity standpoint. In essence a button ante is similar to a three blind concept (though obviously there are positional advantage differences which make it not exactly the same). But there may be other warts (the dead button scenario) which sort of counter any benefits this has over the BBA.

What would you see as a "wart" if the procedure is if there's a dead button then there is no ante that hand?

Inequities only affect all players equally over the very long-term. By definition, inequities do not affect all players equally over the short term. If they did, they would not be inequities.

I recognize that inequities are a part of poker (and life). And outside of some sort of technological improvements, it would probably be impossible to remove them from poker. But that doesn't mean we should be making changes which exacerbate them.

As for exaggeration... I do not think those who advocate for the BBA because it smoothes the structure are exaggerating. It does smooth the structure. And even if I don't personally feel like this is a very good reason to make such a change, I recognize that others might feel differently. But by far, the most common and loudest arguments people make for the BBA have nothing to do with structure smoothness, and instead are all about how much time it saves. And these arguments are vastly exaggerated. It gives one the impression that a "bait and switch" is occurring, where a person wants something for real reason A) that others may not like, so they argue at the top of their lungs for mythical reason B) which just happens to be easier to digest for people who don't think deeply about these things. This is what happens all the time in politics. Can anyone claim that it automatically leads to great decisions?

I have always said that the BBA will improve some things a little and make other things a little worse. There is no exaggeration in any of that. It just begs the question why make the change?

Your (and others') smoothness argument is really the only compelling one I have heard. It just doesn't quite do it for me. If others feel differently, that is fine. I don't think the majority of folks pushing for the BBA or at least being amenable to it have a clue about, or care about structure smoothness.

I do think that the tourney break-down lag potential issue I have thought about and discussed recently is as big a deal to me as structure smoothness is to you. Rec players don't have time to play longer tournaments in general. Fewer rec players is not good for non-rec players (nor for venues). These factors are much more important than structure smoothness, IMO. Its so important, I am pretty certain TDs will do whatever they need to avoid the issue, in essence, making the structure worse to counter some of the effects of the BBA. So, we will have yet another wart for the BBA, with no additional benefits in sight