Ante's (or blinds) vs. pot odds

[Hawk]

So I'm reading Slanksy's Theory of Poker and something I'm reading doesn't make sense to me.

He's talking about playing tight or loose should (partially) be based on the size of the ante's (assuming blinds is no different here). He says that you should play tight with low ante's (in relation to stack sizes) and more loose with high ante's because, "Since there's more money in the pot, you're obviously getting better odds"

Seems to me that the odds would be the same regardless of the ante/blind size, as raising or calling, for example, 3x BB would lead to the same odds regardless of the size of the BB.

Am I misunderstanding something here?

[Info]

There is more dead money to go after preflop, therefore, altering the odds you are getting on your preflop call.

[Hawk]

That still doesn't make sense to me.

Let's say everyone has $100 stacks.

If the blinds are .01/.02 (very small blinds), and there is one limper before you, you have pot odds of 2.5:1 when calling (unless i'm worse at math than I thought)

If the blinds are $5/$10 (large blinds), and there is one limper before you, you still have pot odds of 2.5:1 when calling.

Now I see how you should loosen up in the large blind situation, as you don't have time to wait for a monster hand before getting blinded out, but I don't see how it changes your odds on any particular hand.

And at this point of the book he is still talking specifically about pot odds, nothing about implied odds yet.

[kmind]

Are you sure he doesn't mean for after the flop? A very short stack obv. means very good pot odds.

[Hawk]

No, he's talking about starting hand selection:
"As the ante increases, you loosen up your starting-hand requirements. There are four reasons for you to loosen up. First, you are getting better pot odds...."

After that he explains the other 3 reasons, which make perfect sense.

[kmind]

Oh yeah I didn't even read your OP correctly. But yeah with large antes the pot odds are much better.

[Info]

9 handed, $5/$10 NLwith a $1 ante UTG, your pot odds are 5-2 and are much better than the 3-2 you would be getting w/o the ante

[salsa4ever]

think of it this way

we're playing limit holdem

blinds are 0.01/0.02
bets are $1000 and $2000

Obviously you want to play not much more than JJ+/AKs here. And there wouldn't be much of a game

Now the blinds are $1000/$2000
bets are 0.01 and 0.02

Now you never want to fold. at least not before you determine you are drawing dead.

In intermediate cases you would play looser when blinds are big and tighter when blinds are small, like in our example

[Hawk]

That makes sense, but it doesn't seem to be the same thing to me.

You are describing the differences in pot odds when blinds are big compared to the bet sizes and vice versa.

I was thinking (NL of course) that if the blinds were large or small that the standard bet sizes would be proportionally larger or smaller (e.g. a 3x BB bet is a 3x BB bet regardless of the size of the BB), which would lead to the same pot odds.

And I'm also perfectly willing to accept that this is just over my head at this point as a noob and might be one of those things that makes perfect sense when I reread the book in a month or two. I know some things will just be that way.

[hachkc]

He's talking about playing tight or loose should (partially) be based on the size of the ante's (assuming blinds is no different here). He says that you should play tight with low ante's (in relation to stack sizes) and more loose with high ante's because, "Since there's more money in the pot, you're obviously getting better odds"

I don't have the book in front of me at the moment but I think his point is this, blinds + ante's = more money in pot = better pot odds preflop.

Example
======
Blinds are 100/200 ante at a full ring table (9 players)
Pot is now 300 (sb+bb) and it costs you 200 to enter the pot (pot odds of 1.5:1)

If you add a 25 ante now (100/200 w/ 25 ante)
Pot is now 525 (sb+bb+(9 x ante)) and it costs you 200 to enter the pot (pot odds of 2.625:1)

This is generally a tournament issue as you don't often see antes in ring/cash NLHE games.

[Hawk]

I think there is a bit of confusion here, maybe it's on my side.

In the book he's referring to ante's alone. Talking about how all poker hands start as a struggle for the ante's.

I brought up blinds because thats what I'm used to, and assumed that the same theory would apply whether we are talking about blinds or talking about ante's.

Unless I'm not understanding this, he's not talking about a situation of having both blinds AND ante's.

For anyone with the book, this is first mentioned in Chapter 4 "The Ante Structure" and is talked about at least a few more times over the next chapter or two.

I'm not interested in making this a big point, but figured it's best to ask if I read something that doesn't make sense.

[salsa4ever]

^^^ it doesn't matter

what does matter is how much does it cost you relative to the average size of prevailing pots to sit around waiting for good hands?

[jyms]

Your missing his whole point. He explains that if their was no antes you would wait and play AA only. Teh game would never start without AA. What happens is when the antes are small, like 0.01/0.02 and you have $100 stacks, you have no need to play marginal hands. You will blind down in3333 orbits. If the blinds are $1/$2 in a $100NL game you have 33 orbits to play a hand and then you must get it all in to compete with the blinds (antes) It's about time, tightness and how to stay ahead of the blinds or antes. Pot odds are pot odds, no matter what the blinds and how much is in the pot.

[jyms]

No, he's talking about starting hand selection:
"As the ante increases, you loosen up your starting-hand requirements. There are four reasons for you to loosen up. First, you are getting better pot odds...."

After that he explains the other 3 reasons, which make perfect sense.

In this reference you have it out of context. He's referring to loosing up your starting requirements because of your pot odds with"Antes" not blinds . If everyone in NL paid a blind, say $1, then teh start of the hand would have $9 in the pot. What can you now call a $4 raise with? He also explains that with blinds you loosen up from the blinds because of pot odds. But this is usually a reference to limit, you must be careful with that in NL. You must really watch what you read in TOP becasue3 of the jumping around from game to game. Read it a lot, and then read it again, it'll start to come to ya.

[Hawk]

Thanks guys. It makes sense now. I wasn't thinking of anything outside of pure pot odds. That part would remain the same, but you are guarding against getting blinded out.

[spoonitnow]

Remember, it's Theory of Poker, not Theory of Holdem.

In any game with higher antes (regardless of whether it's a blind structure or a bring-in structure or only antes or what) if the antes are higher (ie: more initial money in the pot) then you should play looser. It's just like if you're playing a holdem game with more than two blinds and you loosen up to try to take advantage.