Home Tournament, no blinds but Antes instead, how to play

[grouchie]

Well, the heading pretty much says it all.
If i can manage to get out of work early enough or get the day off then this coming saturday I'll be playin in a monthly tournament that has been going on.
It's a $100 buy-in and they pay the top 10%, with the number of players ranging from 30-50.

For some reason they do not play blinds though, they go with ante's instead.
This, i'm sure, will force much more action and i'm assuming should force me to play a much more aggressive tournament style.

How would any of you approach a tournament like this? I know abunch of the players who are going to be playing in it, and for the most part they are all pretty crappy, which is why I'd like to give it a shot even though I think the structure is pretty crappy.

Any advice from the tourney players here?

Be overly aggressive with your good hands preflop if there is a betting round there, if not, just play very aggressively, use good reads to see when you are behind or against a monster, and if you get alot of callers when you bet, then play your draws more aggressively, so you can build up a nice pot, sets of course, and 2 pair. The more people that stick around, the less likely a pair is good.

Because you lose money every hand, but there is more in the pot, you should be more apt to try to steal the antes since 1 ante steal, if say there are 10 players, is enough to last you 10 rounds of play and still have the same sized stack. Stealing a few rounds of antes can really put you up. So because of that, a standard raise isn't going to work, if its no limit, you want to raise 5-6x the ante, enough to limit the players coming in, and if you steal the antes, you gain 10 if there are 10 players, and as long as it works 1/3 times you are even, if you can steal the antes 1/2 the time with a 5x raise, you are going to constantly make money, and the other half, if someone plays at you, you could fold.

Just remember, because people have already put up some chips, they are going to be more willing to play their hand. Look at stud for example, but instead of 4th street, you get 3 cards.

So basically, be aggressive, limp with suited connectors and such that are good against alot of opponents, and raise your good hands higher than you would in sb/bb holdem.

I've only played this style of holdem once, and it was against a bunch of lags, and at the time, I was more of a tag, and didn't know the lag style very well. loose aggressive play, believe it or not, gets rewarded just because you are partially committed to any pot from the getgo.

If you got good reads on your opponents, then it's money in the bank.