In a Cash Game (so not a tournament) what rational reason would Ante benefit you?

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Rational Madman

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Even if you are a looser player, all that Ante does is encourage your opponents to get braver against your loose style.

If you are a tight player, you can't properly read hands as there is far more grey area as to why someone is raising since raises will happen far more to 'scare off' than in non-ante cash tables.

In tournaments there's limited number of hands and a rate of blind increase which perhaps gets evened out if you force everyone to gradually pay more rather than hit some players harder than others by timing the blind increase onto them which is a fair enough reason to have antes as the form of chip leakage there instead of purely blinds but in cash games blinds don't increase so what justification is there to have antes, it doesn't even anything out it just makes you have to play much dumber to make back what you lost.
 
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Even if you are a looser player, all that Ante does is encourage your opponents to get braver against your loose style.

Some players will not loosen up, others will get too loose. Players who adjust by playing slightly looser (assuming the antes are small) will have an advantage.

Smart loose players who read hands well and can make tough folds are happy to have opponents get braver against them.

Also, if you are a winning player, antes = bigger pots = more to win.
 
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Some players will not loosen up, others will get too loose. Players who adjust by playing slightly looser (assuming the antes are small) will have an advantage.

Smart loose players who read hands well and can make tough folds are happy to have opponents get braver against them.
This is the instinctive approach yes, but on later analysis you will find that your instinctive 'can play stronger as everyone is risking more' is negated since you no longer can correctly read as raises become less based on anything specific and much more grey-area in terms of the reason for the raise, as well as the amount.

Is it to protect against the constant leakage of chips via antes or is this person representing a strong hand? Is this person simply raising to see my reaction, meaning they have a semi-good hand and will fold to me or are they raising this amount more than the minimum bet because the profit covers a few antes?
 
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*Sighs* are you through yet?
This question is about Antes not saying that cash games are better than tournaments.

Also, this is the cash-game side of the forums so I am entitled to be a cash game supremacist while posting here but I am actually not being one in this thread.
 
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This is the instinctive approach yes, but on later analysis you will find that your instinctive 'can play stronger as everyone is risking more' is negated since you no longer can correctly read as raises become less based on anything specific and much more grey-area in terms of the reason for the raise, as well as the amount.

Is it to protect against the constant leakage of chips via antes or is this person representing a strong hand? Is this person simply raising to see my reaction, meaning they have a semi-good hand and will fold to me or are they raising this amount more than the minimum bet because the profit covers a few antes?

Are you saying that hand reading becomes more difficult pre-flop, post-flop, or both?

Pre-flop, I don't think antes make a big difference in hand reading. You still need to construct an approximate opening range for each opponent. If you don't have enough hands against an opponent yet to do this, you assign them a generic opening range that is very slightly looser than it would be on a non-ante table.

Post Flop: Antes = Bigger Pots = lower stack - to - pot ratios = easier post-flop decisions.
 
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Are you saying that hand reading becomes more difficult pre-flop, post-flop, or both?

Pre-flop, I don't think antes make a big difference in hand reading. You still need to construct an approximate opening range for each opponent. If you don't have enough hands against an opponent yet to do this, you assign them a generic opening range that is very slightly looser than it would be on a non-ante table.

Post Flop: Antes = Bigger Pots = lower stack - to - pot ratios = easier post-flop decisions.
Post-flop. People who are in later positions will become much more relentless with abusing you if you check.

You will be forced to bluff-raise from earlier position just to prevent them from bluffing you.
 
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Post-flop. People who are in later positions will become much more relentless with abusing you if you check.

You will be forced to bluff-raise from earlier position just to prevent them from bluffing you.

Just to make sure I understand: you are contending that cash games with antes have more post-flop bluffing from late position?

Going back to the original post, are you also contending that this makes it harder to be a winning player for both loose and tight players?
 
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Just to make sure I understand: you are contending that cash games with antes have more post-flop bluffing from late position?

Going back to the original post, are you also contending that this makes it harder to be a winning player for both loose and tight players?
Yes you will be seeing aggression that fundamentally means nothing so you need to be double as aggressive which is in no way at all helpful to a disciplined poker player of any playstyle. This means you have far less power over the quantity and frequency of your downswings and upswings.
 
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any sign of your cash game graphs yet?
 
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Yes you will be seeing aggression that fundamentally means nothing so you need to be double as aggressive which is in no way at all helpful to a disciplined poker player of any playstyle. This means you have far less power over the quantity and frequency of your downswings and upswings.

I agree that playing games characterized by aggressive post-flop play increases variance. This makes bankroll management crucial.

But poker is a zero-sum game. Other than an increase in the rake, any game condition will either be neutral for all players (for example, the color of the felt is unlikely to increase anyone's win rate), or good for some players and bad for others.

There is no type of game condition that is bad for the win rate of all players (again, excepting rake).
 
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I agree that playing games characterized by aggressive post-flop play increases variance. This makes bankroll management crucial.

But poker is a zero-sum game. Other than an increase in the rake, any game condition will either be neutral for all players (for example, the color of the felt is unlikely to increase anyone's win rate), or good for some players and bad for others.

There is no type of game condition that is bad for the win rate of all players (again, excepting rake).
Sorry but you are COMPLETELY wrong in this notion. In fact increase in rake is the ONLY change where all players are 100% equally affected (unless you start comparing across different sites/sinos).

Any change to the physicality of the game completely alters how one needs to play it. This is why there are so many different tournament types when it comes to MTTs, because some people want a really chaotic game with a lot of preflop brutality (this is either the rapid blind-increase hyperturbo styled MTT), others want an equally chaotic game where the bluffing and madness begins around the turn card rather than preflop (this is the high ante-styled tournaments but without too fast of an increase in the actual blinds/antes), others want a medium game somewhat and like to bluff but also like to think and play tight, these are the ones who will prefer the classic styled tournaments but perhaps with a very slight twist or whatever (those ones where you don't even really know what the hell the nickname of the gametype is meant to mean), then you get much tighter players who are bored of cash games, wanting a softer crowd but do enjoy the pacing and other factors involved in tournaments. If they are much more favoring of preflop judgement, they will prefer much smaller tables but with big crowds (you know the heads-up or the four-man table styled MTTs), they will enjoy the action and no doubt will meet many LAG-styled opponents there who are picking the wrong gametype for their playstyle. The final player type, who isn't a fish or donkey, will be the tight player who is much more into post-flop play. They will liked mixed limit MTTs (mixed limit means that the preflop is fixed limit, the first three cards are slightly less limited size-wise but still limited and the turn and river are no-limit.

The playstyle a person has will fit a game type better in tournaments.

ON THE OTHER HAND, in cash games everything that I just said about there being alterations to benefit a playstyle over another is untrue.

The only thing is this: If you are a looser player who hates folding too often, you will prefer 6-man, headsup cash games etc compared to 9-man/full. Antes in cash games only benefit dumber players as it gives everyone less of an edge if they are trying to get one.
 
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Sorry but you are COMPLETELY wrong in this notion. In fact increase in rake is the ONLY change where all players are 100% equally affected (unless you start comparing across different sites/sinos).

That's what I said. Changes to the rake are the only non-trivial changes to a game that have a negative impact on the win rates of all players. We agree.

Or at least I think we do? Because you seem to be disagreeing with yourself here:

ON THE OTHER HAND, in cash games everything that I just said about there being alterations to benefit a playstyle over another is untrue.

You just assert this. What has led you to believe this is true? What has led you to believe it is even possible, in a zero-sum game?
 
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That's what I said. Changes to the rake are the only non-trivial changes to a game that have a negative impact on the win rates of all players. We agree.

Or at least I think we do? Because you seem to be disagreeing with yourself here:



You just assert this. What has led you to believe this is true? What has led you to believe it is even possible, in a zero-sum game?
Okay. The reason why, in tournaments, alterations can benefit a playstyle is because due to increasing blinds and the threat of 'this may be the best hand or bluff-opportunity I get to not choke by blinding out' makes tighter players in certain styles more forced to alter their rational moves and instead make passionate ones. This benefits looser players who will be getting much huger late-game stacks than the smarter players regularly in these games as they took the coinflips the tighter ones didn't dare do and lets them bully them to get higher up the tournmament's food chain. Equally, there are alterations to force much more order into a tournament including mixed limits and/or many small tables rather than one small one or many big ones. This lets you prey on the fish/donkeys one by one rather than need to fear others having better than you even if the donk is blatantly overbetting in the situation which is common in tournaments of many 9-man tables where you act sandwiched between the donkey and other players and is actually why I disagree with the popular opinion that being immediately clockwise from a donkey is beneficial since you can't read the tighter players' hands before reacting to the overbet that you know is so juicy and is so yours if the tighter ones don't reraise it after you.

Anyway, in cash games it's an infinite game that goes as long as you want it to and is there for you to pick up when you wish to again. This means that any physical alteration which increases action and involuntary loss of chips benefits nobody at all, whether riskier or safer as all it does is make aggression mean less to everyone and therefore increase swings regardless of anyone's hand strength.
 
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Yes you will be seeing aggression that fundamentally means nothing so you need to be double as aggressive.


U wut m8?

I was going to quote and tear apart pretty much everything you have said Rational but it would take too much effort. You don't know nearly as much as you think you do about poker and it is very clear you have very little understanding when it comes to assigning ranges and hand reading.

I'll just leave this food for thought for you.

Lets say we have a no ante table with 9 players, 8 are them are all losing players while the 9th cleans up.

Now lets do this same table, but with antes, is the 9th player going to have a lower win rate? Why?
 
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U wut m8?

I was going to quote and tear apart pretty much everything you have said Rational but it would take too much effort. You don't know nearly as much as you think you do about poker and it is very clear you have very little understanding when it comes to assigning ranges and hand reading.

I'll just leave this food for thought for you.

Lets say we have a no ante table with 9 players, 8 are them are all losing players while the 9th cleans up.

Now lets do this same table, but with antes, is the 9th player going to have a lower win rate? Why?
Because in the long run, it's possible that when he is bb and sb that semi decent hands are hitting him often enough that the involuntary losses via blinds can be dealt with either by baiting looser players in on good hands later on or on bluffing to defend the blind (defending blinds is silly mentality but against tight players it is at least a viable idea).

With ante, it firstly encourages far wider range for all players, this in turn forces a winning player to need to tighten up their preflop cards and forces them to overbetss at every stage of a hand they are in to make back their constant leakage via antes where it's very unlikely that majority of ante hands or even half of ante hands you are able to enter the flop reasonably.
 
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Because in the long run, it's possible that when he is bb and sb that semi decent hands are hitting him often enough that the involuntary losses via blinds can be dealt with either by baiting looser players in on good hands later on or on bluffing to defend the blind (defending blinds is silly mentality but against tight players it is at least a viable idea).

With ante, it firstly encourages far wider range for all players, this in turn forces a winning player to need to tighten up their preflop cards and forces them to overbetss at every stage of a hand they are in to make back their constant leakage via antes where it's very unlikely that majority of ante hands or even half of ante hands you are able to enter the flop reasonably.

Everyone gets the same combinations of hands the same amount of times in the long run so save your "In the long run it's possible that he gets better hands" You are literally talking nonsense here and have nothing to back this up.

Is the 2nd half your answer to my question? Why does a winning player need to start overbetting every street to win in an ante game? Once again you are spouting gibberish that can't be backed by literally everything.
 
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Everyone gets the same combinations of hands the same amount of times in the long run so save your "In the long run it's possible that he gets better hands" You are literally talking nonsense here and have nothing to back this up.

Is the 2nd half your answer to my question? Why does a winning player need to start overbetting every street to win in an ante game? Once again you are spouting gibberish that can't be backed by literally everything.
You don't understand the difference between constant leakage vs 2/9 styled leakage.

You aren't going to have 9/9 playable hands but 2/9 hands can indeed in the long run be playable (see the logic?) :)
 
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You don't understand the difference between constant leakage vs 2/9 styled leakage.

You aren't going to have 9/9 playable hands but 2/9 hands can indeed in the long run be playable (see the logic?) :)

The logic that you are missing out on is that EVERYONE is putting antes in the pot, not just you. A winning player is going to increase their win rate when loosing players put DEAD money in the pot via ANTES.
 
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The logic that you are missing out on is that EVERYONE is putting antes in the pot, not just you. A winning player is going to increase their win rate when loosing players put DEAD money in the pot via ANTES.
But the edge you gain from reading playstyles and ranges will be mitigated severely as everyone's range becomes murkier as do their raises of small quantity which can simply be with bottom pair.
 
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But the edge you gain from reading playstyles and ranges will be mitigated severely as everyone's range becomes murkier as do their raises of small quantity which can simply be with bottom pair.

Ok you are right, I'll give you this one. Ranges do become wider which makes the game tougher BUT it also makes it tougher for already loosing players and makes them loose at a higher rate thus making the winning players win at a higher rate.

I'm not going to touch the latter part of your post because you don't have a good understanding of how to play/play against ranges and I'm not about to go into detail about the topic.
 
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Ok you are right, I'll give you this one. Ranges do become wider which makes the game tougher BUT it also makes it tougher for already loosing players and makes them loose at a higher rate thus making the winning players win at a higher rate.

I'm not going to touch the latter part of your post because you don't have a good understanding of how to play/play against ranges and I'm not about to go into detail about the topic.
I love you too. [emoji178]
 
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Anyway, in cash games it's an infinite game that goes as long as you want it to and is there for you to pick up when you wish to again. This means that any physical alteration which increases action and involuntary loss of chips benefits nobody at all, whether riskier or safer as all it does is make aggression mean less to everyone and therefore increase swings regardless of anyone's hand strength.

Do you believe that in cash games, some players are better than others at playing at tables that feature a lot of aggression?
 
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