Do Antes Change your strategy?

[Hotrod0823]

I've just started playing at Pokerstars and have noticed a few major differences playing there vs. UB.

First the 1500 in chips makes for a much longer game. This is not necessarily a good thing. I like getting done in an hour or so.

The second is the blind structure. It seems very slow in the beginning which is fine but once the antes started I get ancy. Its easy to fold mediocre hands when you have little invested but folding hand after hand and ante after ante it begins to add up.

I played the 1+0 tourney tonight just to see how there MTT's worked and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in 2nd place with T105 with 25 players left. Prizes at this tourney are small even with 900+ entrants but I was hoping to see the final table.

Well I was sitting for about 3 orbits when the blinds were 2000/4000 with IIRC 150 in antes. I played zero hands. Leaking almost over T20K. 4000 in just antes the rest in blinds. At this point in time there were many MidStacks going all in on each hand and I was getting hands unplayable hands like 58x.

Tried 2 steal attempts from LP with Modest 3xBB raises and each time they came over the top all in.

The other issue I had was the constant moving around. At one point in the tourney I had just settled in stealing/winning and slowly amassing chips. I was the table leader at the table with T40k and the rest had mostly short stack with less then 20 each. Then for whatever reason I got moved.

I found myself moved to another table and plays I was making were getting crushed and I wasn't fast enough to adjust to the table and lost nearly 1/3 my stack when my standard 3xBB raises where getting reraised. I was getting nice hands to open raise with [Hands like (KQs, JTs, AQs) and PP like 99, 1010)] but not the best hands to call all in bets with.

Getting dropped on a new table makes getting settled that much harder.

I guess my question is: what is the criteria for moving? How is it decided and when? And should you adjust your play because of antes? I didn't and felt like I was bleeding chips but don't think I should loosen up because of it? Or tighten for that matter?

Thanks Hotrod

[M.B.E.]

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I guess my question is: what is the criteria for moving? How is it decided and when?

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As far as I can tell, PokerStars will break a table when the number of players drops to a multiple of nine. For example, if there are 55 players remaining they will be distributed over seven tables, with six tables of 8 players and one table of 7. When one more player is eliminated, bringing the total down to 54, the software will move players around so that there are six tables of 9 players.

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And should you adjust your play because of antes? I didn't and felt like I was bleeding chips but don't think I should loosen up because of it? Or tighten for that matter?

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You have to steal more when there are antes, all other things being equal, and your preflop raises need to be bigger. If your "standard" preflop raise is three times the big blind, it has to be more than that when there are antes. As a corollory you also have to defend your blinds more.

[CrisBrown]

Hi HotRod,

I moved from UB to PokerStars about two months ago, and I like their structure a lot better. The longer games mean more decisions to make, and more decisions to make gives an extra edge to more skillful players.

Their criteria for moving is as M.B.E. described; they try to keep the tables full and/or equal. I think their choice for whom to move is random, although I don't know. I feel as if I get moved more when I'm a big stack, but that might not be a valid impression. (Maybe it's just that I'm a big stack more often than I'm a small stack.)

As for what to do when the antes kick in, yes, you have to be a bit more aggressive, in both the frequency and amount of your steal raises. As a rule, you'd like to steal three times for every two orbits of the table.

How to accomplish that is very table-dependent. At a tight table, or when you have a huge stack, it's easier. At a more aggressive table, or when you have a less-than-average stack, it's much more difficult. With a small stack, about all you can do is try to steal a few blinds here and there to stay alive, and hope to catch a hand with which to make a resteal and/or double through. Remember that if you get down to 8xBB or less, your only possible steal-raise is to go all-in. (Any lesser raise leaves you no leverage at the flop if you're called.)

For what it's worth, I've done MUCH better at PokerStars than I ever did at UB. It may be that I'm playing better, or it may be simply that the structure at PokerStars is more suited to my style of play. But if you can adapt to the changes, you can be very successful there.

Cris