Ante Up tourney

[Jauron]

So today I play a tourney on PS that was very different than any I've played before. I did OK for my first one like to have a better idea if I decide to do it again.

The format was the following:
NL Hold'em
You start with 2000 chips
Blinds are 5/5 at all times, never increases.
Antes start out as 5, then increase as blinds normally would (a little slower maybe) so EVERY hand costs you and everyone else the same amount, except for blinds who pay 5 more.

The interesting things that came up that I wasn't real sure about:

Raises, obviously not using blinds here, and given the pot is 9x the ante what is a proper raise?

If the pot has not been raised before you (limped or folded) should you ever consider folding? For instance it cost you eventually 100 per hand to ante but 5 to call. Pot is 900...

M is all jacked up, at what point do you start shoving? How many hands to play before you go broke?

At what point do you have to shove instead of raising? Well I guess if I knew what a proper raise was I'd have a better idea here.

[Jernej Zorec]

M is still M
raise depends on what the table does
just need to see what amount will make em fold

[Jauron]

Should I also play well and pick my spots? Generic advise is awesome.

[Jernej Zorec]

well generally high antes mean u need to play looser (again obv coz of odds) ,
not that there is a whole new field of poker strategy coz of this

its really no different than normal structure
just like in normal mtt u see that people react same to 2.5x raise than they do to 3x its better to raise 2.5x same u need to see how table responds in this type of mtt

[lwestatbus]

My thoughts. I've never played one of these.

Loosening Up

Your description sounds a little like the early stages of fixed limit tournys. Blinds are low so raises are low so you run little risk if you limp preflop from early position with marginal hands. Because of this, lots of people do it which then makes it even more profitable to see these early flops with any two cards. There is just a lot of money in the pot compared to your risk.

In your tournament the similarity is that there is a lot of money in the pot making marginal hands more valuable. The difference is that you can still have a raise behind you making limping just as risky as in a regular tournament. I'd say then that you would probably loosen up a lot in late position preflop but may want to play about as usual in earlier positions.

M

I think that the antes are going to take some people by surprise and eat you up in a hurry. Question: Did the antes ever approach 1/10th of the average stack? I think that players with shorter stacks will be under more pressure to make something happen and therefore increase the range of hands they may push with. This may have two consequences:

1. You may be able to discount the likely strentgh of a hand someone pushes with if their stack is shorter.

2. It will be more important to accumulate chips earlier in the tourny since the effective M becomes higher faster. It therefore may be correct to become aggressive earlier.

Raises

It seems to me that raises, especially earlier in the tournament, need to be of a size to push marginal hands out. A raise of 3-4 x BB with five BB already in the pot only sweetens the pot and rewards gambling. And if I'm correct that players should gamble earlier to ride out card droughts in the middle stages then effective raises may have to be very large. How large? I don't know.

So, those are my thoughts. Again, they are based on zero experience--but that's never stopped me before.

[LeeG]

If the 'standard' opening is 3BB, your opponents would require 67% equity to make a 'proper' call in a normal no ante 2 blind game.

If the blinds are 5/5 and the antes are 50, then there is 460 in the pot preflop and you have to raise to 920 to give them the equivalent odds (basically double the initial pot).