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Every poker hand starts with the forced bets being posted. And while the effect of the small and big blind is apparent to most players, many disregard the impact of antes in poker games.
However, the effect of antes in poker is quite substantial, and players who want to succeed, especially in tournaments, need to understand how to switch up their game once the antes kick in.
The truth is that many players continue playing exactly the same with antes as they did without them, and this is a major flaw that can be fixed by applying a few adjustments to your game.
In this article, we take a look at some of the main adjustments you should make in your poker game when playing poker with antes and the benefits you will reap from making such adjustments.
There is one very simple reason why the addition of antes in a poker game makes all the difference in the world, and it is related directly to the size of the pot.
When playing in a game without antes, you start every hand with exactly 1.5 big blinds in the pot, which warrants certain opening and defending ranges from different positions.
As antes get introduced, each pot will grow to up to 2.5 big blinds at the start, adding additional incentive to go after pots and defend in the blinds.
The bigger the pot, the better your price on every steal attempt and every big blind defense is, which means expanding all of your ranges is a strategic adjustment that needs to be made.
The introduction of antes in poker tournaments is especially important, as the average tournament stack tends to be relatively low, making the ante effect much bigger.
We already explained that the introduction of antes makes the pots bigger, but let’s look at an example to see how they actually change things in practice.
Imagine you are playing in a tournament with blinds at 500/1,000 without any antes. In this scenario, the pot is 1,500 chips to start with, and the minimum raise you can make is 2,000.
Assuming you raise from any position to 2,000, you will win 1,500 chips any time you win the pot uncontested. If everyone folded to your min-raise 50% of the time, that would still not be enough to make your raise break even.
Of course, when you raise a pot, you will also win it on further streets sometimes, but the steal would need to work nearly 60% of the time to show a profit on its own.
On the other hand, imagine the same scenario where you are playing 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante, making the pot 2,500 to start with.
If you were to min-raise to 2,000 to win the 2,500, your raise would only need to get through everyone about 45% of the time to show an immediate profit without even taking account of the pots you will win postflop.
Of course, this is a very simplified approach, but even this simple approach demonstrates the value of playing more hands when the antes are in play.
With all that said, let’s examine some strategic adjustments you should make in different situations when antes are in play.
Early positions in tournament poker are some of the simplest to play as the strategy dictates we should play a fairly tight and value-heavy range.
In a game without antes, it is advisable to raise only pocket pairs 55+, high suited Aces, AQ+, suited Broadways, and an occasional suited baby Ace for balance.
This is a very tight range comprising just over 5% of all hands, and the reasoning is simple: there are too many players behind us who could have a good hand for us to open wide.
Once the antes kick in, the strategy that solvers recommend changes quite a bit, as the incentive to go after pots is now significantly higher.
Assuming we have a playable stack of at least 30 big blinds, we should start opening all suited Aces, pocket pairs, most suited connectors, and some offsuit hands like AT and KJ.
The default opening range more than doubles with the introduction of antes, as the ability to steal more chips when our raise gets through means we have more of a reason to try the steal often.
This is even more true when the players at your table are generally passive and don’t defend enough, as you will be able to print money with your opens at such tables.
Even playing against capable opposition, you should still start opening nearly 20% of all hands from early positions in tournaments when antes are in play and go after those juicy pots with all hands that have decent playability.
As you would expect, the default strategy for playing in the middle position without antes suggests we play a bit looser than we would from the early position but not too loose.
In fact, the default opening range for a 30 bb stack in the lojack still does not include hands like 22 and 33 or hands like AT, J9s, or 65s.
This tight opening range gets a significant upgrade when antes kick in, as solvers now recommend opening hands as weak as K6s, A9, and 75s.
All these hands and all the better variations of the same are now profitable steal attempts, as the extra chips in the pot mean we can get away with more failed attempts to win the pot.
If there was even more dead money in the pot, you would be incentivized to raise even more often, and this would be especially true if your opponents did not adjust appropriately and start defending wider ranges.
Late positions are generally positions where you want to go for maximum pressure and steal the blinds often when folded to, even without antes.
For example, a good cutoff steal range includes hands like 64s and A9 without antes but goes as wide as any Ace and any suited King when antes are in play.
On the dealer button, you can expand this range even further and probably get away with raising any suited hand and all sorts of offsuit hands from the dealer.
When thinking about how wide to raise the button, you should think about the opponents in the blinds and refer to their stats if you have them available.
If the players in the blinds are reasonably tight, opening a very wide range of 60% hands from the button or even cutoff can be a reasonable play. Just make sure your opponents are actually tight and nitty ones.
Against a random opponent, you will still want to open about half your hands from late positions and attack the blinds and antes with anything that seems remotely playable.
Once the antes are in play, it is important to remember that you are not the only one at the table who will start playing loser.
In fact, all capable players in the tournament will expand their ranges and start going for more steals, which means you will want to re-steal more often.
This is especially the case when facing later position raises, as they will easily be made up of 30, 40, and even 50% of all starting hands.
In such scenarios, such as when facing a cutoff or button open in the small blind, you will be able to re-raise or re-shove and print money with a wide variety of hands.
Prime candidates for such plays, in addition to premium hands, are hands like suited Aces and suited Kings, which have good removal effects and solid equity when called by the original raiser.
Re-stealing can be a bit uncomfortable and seem a bit dangerous at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will realize just how juicy the pots become when a player has already opened with a wide range and is going to fold the majority of his hands to your re-raise.
When defending the big blind against opens in a tournament with antes, there are several things to consider.
You will want to think about the opener’s position and raise size, the effective stack, and the opponent’s tendencies.
Playing in the big blind with a larger stack (over 20 bb), you will often be incentivized to defend your big blind with a call with a wide range of hands.
The discounted price you are getting in the BB and the fact you are closing the action means you can get away with calling quite a few hands profitably.
For example, imagine again that you are playing at the 500/1,000/1,000 level and are in the big blind with 27,000 this time around.
The player in the cutoff opens to 2,250, and everyone folds to you. You now need to call 1,250 to play for a pot of 6,000, effectively getting odds of 5/1.
With odds like these, you can take the flop with any suited hands and even a bunch of offsuit hands profitably, although you have to worry about under-realizing your equity being out of position.
Re-raising from the big blind in a situation like this is not too tempting, as you are getting such a good price to call and realize your equity without risking getting 4-bet or potentially having to put in your entire stack with a marginal hand.
As stacks get shallower, you will want to re-steal a lot from the big blind, and the numbers show that you can re-steal very wide against late position opens and show a profit.
Again, you will not want to shove every hand that the chart says is a profitable shove every time, as you don’t want to maximize your variance by force.
Instead, taking flops with some and shoving other profitable hands will allow you to print equity both ways and eventually dominate your opposition.
So far, we have talked about how to adjust your opening and defending ranges based on position and stack size, but not based on your opponents.
As you would expect, the way other players play should have quite a big impact on how we respond, and playing against tighter opponents will mean we have to play tighter as well.
Generally speaking, most players will not open any position as loose as they should, while very few maniacs will open much wider than they should.
In lower-stakes MTTs, players will often open early positions with hands they should not, such as T9, while they will raise the button tighter than they theoretically should.
This is caused by players looking at their hands for their absolute value and potential to make the nuts instead of looking at their position and their hand’s equity.
As a general rule of thumb, you should raise wider on passive and tight tables and raise tighter on tables that seem to play too loose and have some maniacs on them.
When defending the blinds, you should also consider how wide your opponents may be opening, and having access to a HUD with some general stats will always be a good idea.
After looking at several major strategic adjustments we can make in poker games with antes, we can conclude that the addition of antes in a game means you should generally expand all your ranges.
While many players are timid about playing more hands from positions they are used to playing relatively tight, proper poker strategy suggests you should do just that.
Once the antes kick in, you should be looking to raise more pots from all positions, make more re-steals, and defend your blind wider than ever before.
When deciding whether to play a hand or not, think about your pot odds, the equity of your hand, and the likelihood you will win all the juicy money in the pot without even having to take a flop.
Now that you've learned what how to adjust your strategy in poker games with antes, it's time to assess your overall poker prowess. Take the Pokercode Poker Skill Quiz 2024 to evaluate your knowledge and receive free access to coaching videos and additional resources.
Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this quiz will help you identify areas for improvement and take your game to the next level.
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