Ante Up!

Pot-limit hold'em and no-limit hold'em are very similar games. When I'm playing no-limit hold'em with deep stacks, I very rarely make a bet that would be disallowed in pot-limit hold'em. In a way, pot-limit forces bad players to play better. They're never allowed to open-raise all in for more than three and a half times the big blind before the flop, whereas in no-limit hold'em, players are free to jam for $10,000 in an attempt to win $75 in blinds. There is, however, another key difference between the two games. Pot-limit hold'em is never, under any circumstances, played with an ante. (Or at least, if you've played it with an ante, you've played a very strange variant, indeed.) It may not seem like much, but in tournaments especially, this difference is absolutely crucial.



Let's look at an example: You're at a 10-handed no-limit hold'em table, and are dealt 10-8 offsuit on the button. The blinds are $100-$200, there are no antes, and you have $2,000 in chips. Figure that if you move in, you will be called by A-9 or better, K-Q, and pairs down to fives. (I know we can quibble with the ranges with which random players will call this all-in raise, but I believe this to be a reasonable estimate.) That means that each player has about an 11.8 percent chance of calling you, which in turn means that you have about a 22.2 percent chance of getting called by either the small blind or the big blind. Another way of saying this is that there is a 77.8 percent chance that you will steal the blinds. If you are called, you have 32.6 percent equity. So, ignoring multiway pots and assuming, for simplicity, that it's the big blind who calls, the expected value (EV) of this play is .778($300) + .222(.326($4,100) – $2,000) = $233.40 – $147.27 = $86.13. Notice that this is a pretty strong play even with no antes, earning almost a full small blind in profit.



Now let's do the math again, but this time we'll throw in a $25 ante. In my opinion, typical opponents do not adjust to the presence of antes nearly as well as they should. So, let's say now your opponents in the blinds will call with all of the same hands as before, but they'll also throw in K-J and A-8. In this case, each player is calling with about 14.2 percent of his hands, so your steal will be successful about 73.6 percent of the time. Your equity if you are called is 32.4 percent. The key difference, however, is that when you steal the blinds now, you also steal the antes. You win $300+$25(10) = $550 on your steals. Redoing the calculation with all of the new numbers, our EV is .736($550) + .264(.324($4,350) – $2,000) = $404.80 – $155.92 = $244.88. Wow. Our jam is worth almost three times as much when the antes are thrown in. It is worth more than a full big blind in profit. The blinds would have to substantially widen their calling ranges before the EVs of the jams with and without antes are similar. Can you see why aggressive players like myself love the time in a tournament when the antes kick in?



The addition of antes to a no-limit hold'em game, and the resulting impact on the play, is more than just a mathematical curiosity. No-limit hold'em is not supposed to be a game in which every hand has someone raising and everyone else folding. Without antes, there is a real danger of correct play looking very boring. Who wants to fight for just the blinds? Without antes, there is little incentive to put in the first raise, and as a result, there is little incentive to call a player who has decided to put in that first raise. Antes solve this problem. They create action. Everyone has strong incentive to play. Now there's every reason to put in the first raise, and plenty of reason to call it. Purists like myself love antes not only because they increase our bankroll, but because we believe no-limit hold'em was meant to be played with them.



It took a while for online cardrooms to catch on. In fact, PartyPoker only recently added antes to its tournaments. It's pretty clear, however, that online cardrooms do not understand how antes function. The first ante level in the big Sunday PokerStars tournament features blinds of $100-$200 and a $10 ante. On PartyPoker, the first ante level has blinds of $400-$800 and an ante of $25! Actually, PokerStars recently reduced its antes from its previous standard amounts. Apparently, some people believe that the low antes give the players more play. To give the players more play, make the levels longer. After all, reducing the blinds also allows for more play, but it's pretty clear that it wouldn't make sense to do that, right? It doesn't make sense to reduce the antes, either.



An ante one-tenth the size of the small blind is hardly an incentive to play. While it's better than nothing, it doesn't compare to the more traditional ante size of one-fourth of a small blind. In many high-limit brick-and-mortar tournaments, there are levels at which the ante is a solid one-third of a small blind. I've even played tournaments in which the ante is half the small blind. While that one-half the small blind ante may be extreme, it's clear that the one-tenth small blind ante is far too small, let alone the one-sixteenth the small blind ante. Antes are designed to create action, and the miniscule antes used by online cardrooms right now don't come close. I urge the major online cardrooms to increase the size of their antes.



As for you readers, remember to consider the antes in any form of poker you're playing. Aggressively attacking dead money and recognizing when other players are doing it, are both keys to successful poker. Go after the antes, and your bankroll will thank you.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available online at http://www.cardplayer.com/.