When the Antes are the same as the Small Blind?

[manku]

I play in a home tourney, been running for 20+ years, now with over 80 players. Buy in is $300. Get 500 in chips, blinds start at 1-2, with 1 antes and escalate from there. Only final table makes it, with the top three getting lions share. And the host starts really escalating the blinds near the end - he wants to go to bed. Maybe once every 15 minutes or so. Most players, of course, are not pro level and MANY first timers or only occasional players, but some very good home players (but no tourney pros or poker junkies). A few questions:

1. How should these extra LARGE antes affect your play? I saw some weird stuff, which had to be wrong, like the SB folding an unraised pot (getting 11-1 on his call). Also, most raises were not 3-5 times the BB, but rather 1-2. I don't think people factored in the dead money.

2. When we were down to 20 players (three tables), I had about 1500 in chips. Blinds had just been raised to 50-100, with 50 blinds. 500 dead money in pot. With my blind luck that night, of course I was the first with the BB. My table had four of the chip leaders, BTW.

Everyone folded to the button, who raised to 250. The SB folded. I looked down and saw KJ, offsuit. The Button, who had about 4000, had raised each time on the button. My image was aggressive and neither tight nor loose. The two players to my left were both smaller stacked and predictable. The host had just changed me up, so my stack seemed smaller (bigger chips, but fewer).

I went all in, and declared it. He called. I thought I was in deep crap, but all he had was A9. Unfortunately, that held up.

I spoke to him after, and he didn't realize I was raising that much. He thought I only had about 500, instead of 1300+. Lesson learned - next time declare the amount.

But the real questions are:

1. With each round costing me 500, was I in desperate mode?

2. Knowing that I would be the button in the next two hands and the two players to my left were weakish, should I hhave been more patient?

3. The quality of the opposition was weak - at least 6 first time tourney players by that point and no real poker afficiandos.

Thanks for listening.

Manku

[Exitonly]

yes you should have been in desperation mode, and i probably push there too.