At the beginning of the year, I talked about my first experience playing a tournament with a Button Ante structure at the Playground Poker room. A mere 9 months ago was the first time I ever experienced a condensed ante structure. Boy, how things have changed. The big blind ante is rapidly taking the poker tournament world by storm.
In the past 3 months alone, I have played tournaments with a big blind ante structures in Las Vegas at the WSOP, in New York at both Turning Stone and Rivers casinos, and at numerous New Hampshire card rooms. Casinos and card rooms are transitioning to the big blind ante structure so rapidly that I now believe traditional antes will have gone the way of the passenger pigeon within the year.
Big Blind Ante Benefits
The primary benefit of the big blind ante is that it speeds up the game. Until you experience, it, it’s hard to understand how much faster poker moves when the dealer does not have to collect antes from everyone at the table. Or make change. Or remind the 9 seat that they haven’t anted yet for the 6th time in a row. And of course, a faster game means you get to see more hands in a blind level. This alone is reason enough for me to welcome the big blind ante with open arms.
A secondary benefit of the big blind ante is that you are not automatically “in” every hand deep in a tournament. I thus find it easier to step away from the table if, for example, nature calls and it’s still an hour until break. I have always had a lot of difficulty walking away from the table when each hand I miss is going to cost me 500 chips. With the big blind ante, I can take a quick break and know that I just need to get back before the blinds come around.
Finally, the big blind ante reduces the possibility of dealer error. When the entire table is anteing 50 chips and multiple players need change in every hand, the possibility of dealer error is significant. Which, of course, slows down the game. There is nothing worse than waiting 3 minutes for a neophyte dealer to figure out how to make change for a 1,000 chip out of the pot, turn to a player to make an exchange, get it wrong, and have to correct the error.
Did I mention that the big blind ante speeds up the game? SO MUCH.
The primary benefit of the big blind ante is that it speeds up the game. Click To TweetDrawbacks of the Big Blind Ante
The big blind ante does have some drawbacks. The most significant is the fact that at a short table, there is immense pressure on the smaller stack players. If you have 6 players at your table and blinds are 2,000-4,000, you are still paying 10,000 chips a round. With a traditional ante, that would be 7,000 chips. And, of course, a round is completed every 6 hands. This gets expensive fast. Even worse, if your floor is not attentive, you could be getting killed on antes while the table next to you has 9 players and is paying a more reasonable ante per round.
I have only seen a couple of card rooms make adjustments for the late tournament/short table situation. One is to reduce the big blind ante when tables have less than 6 players. In this case, the big blind antes their regular big blind plus an ante the size of the small blind. Another is to return to traditional antes for the final table of the tournament. I think that both of these are great adjustments and am looking forward to seeing them adopted more widely.
Conclusion
Overall, I think the big blind ante is an excellent step in the evolution of tournament poker. The combination of increased dealer speed and accuracy is unbeatable. I appear not to be alone in this assessment, as more and more card rooms are adopting big blind ante structures every week. So get ready to encounter the big blind ante at a card room near you.
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The are more drawbacks of the BBA than the shorthanded situation. The one I find most alarming is the introduction of a fundamental flaw in the concept of poker. Before the BBA we’ve never seen a situation in tournament poker which a player’s contribution to the pot is not matched by his or her opponents in the hand.
Not to mention the BBA in a heads-up situation is quite an extreme change.
And there are also well-known issues that demonstrate flaws with this new format when the player in the BBA spot is very short.
Some of these issues are discussed in more detail here:
https://bbante.com/blog/
Does anteing slow down the game? Yes, marginally and it’s worse when you have inexperienced dealers (but having inexperienced dealers is another issue altogether). But we have “solved” the ante issue with a “solution” that introduces more problems than it solves. We in the poker community can certainly come up with than this.
These are some good points. While it is true that the bb ante is unmatched by other players in a given hand, however, in a round of poker, everyone will have made that same contribution.
Heads up is, of course, simply the extreme of the short handed situation. Most places where I have encountered the BB Ante have made considerations for the final table (often going back to a traditional ante for the final table, solving this “problem”.
The upshot, however, is that poker rooms are adopting the big blind ante format at a rapid pace. Yes, it will push action on small stacks. Poker players will need to adjust their play accordingly.
Quote:
“While it is true that the bb ante is unmatched by other players in a given hand, however, in a round of poker, everyone will have made that same contribution.”
Be that as it may, this is of no consolation to the player in the BBA who is shorted 1BB per opponent when they win a hand (not to mention the situation when the player won’t be at the table for the full round but has paid a full round of antes in advance.) This is an egregious violation to the basic philosophy of a betting game, like poker. Examine starting stacks versus ending stacks and you’ll see how this affects the integrity of the game.
Bets need to be matched *during* the hand one is playing.
This example shows the problem:
Traditional ante:
Blinds 150/300/30 at ten player table
BB is all in preflop (started hand with 1530) versus 4 other players (including the player in the SB)
POT (7800)
The hand is checked down.
BB wins the chip pot. BB risked 1530 chips (vs four opponents) and nets 6270 chips.
BB started hand with 5.1BB and ends hand with 26BB.
“Equal” big blind ante structure:
Blinds 150/300/300 at ten player table
BB is all in preflop (started hand with 1530) versus 4 other players (including the player in the SB)
POT (6450)
The hand is checked down.
BB wins the 6450 chip pot. BB risked 1530 chips and nets 4920 chips.
BB started hand with 5.1BB and ends hand with 21.5BB.
Someone should not have to adjust their play to deal with this sort of inequity. And what is the adjustment? Make sure you don’t get your best hands when seated in the BBA?
The BBA is problematic and changes the game in a major way, all in exchange for a couple more hands per hour. Drawbacks far exceed the benefits.
We can do better.
Oh one other point…
Changing back and forth from BBA to traditional ante within a given tournament to try to make things fairer (apparently proving the fact that a traditional ante structure provides the ideal level of fairness) only manages to make things *more* unfair.
How would you feel if you were pounded by the BBA time and time again short-handed whilst on the cusp of reaching the final table (along with your aforementioned contributions to the pot that aren’t matched by your opponents in a given hand) only to get knocked out just before getting there. Then *those* players start a “new structure” that is more forgiving without the shorted pots or the elevated BBA when short-handed. This “solution” only introduces even more inequity.
Again, all these problems are accepted in order to get a couple more hands in per hour?
No thanks.