Big Blind Ante

4/11/2022by admin

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Big Blind Ante in Poker Table of content: What does the term Big Blind ante mean in poker? Benefit of Big Blind Ante; In a bid to improve and speed up the game, more and more poker tournaments these days are experimenting with a new format that fundamentally changes how in Texas Hold'em, antes are posted.
Big Blind Ante In the later levels of poker tournaments, an ante is introduced to further drive the action besides the incentive to enter the pot formed by the small blind and big blind.
The 1 player ante has been a very good invention, but there have been many discussions about using the big blind ante or the button ante. The TDA is a big fan of the big blind ante. I’m a big fan of the button ante to be honest, but that doesn’t matter at this moment.

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The argument for ‘Ante first’ seems to be that the Big Blind Ante represents the Antes of everybody at the table (It just happens to be this Big Blind’s turn to post them) and the only equity the player has in the hand is the 111 chips for their share of the Antes. If we are to deem the lone 1,000 chip of the player that was posted to be.

The big blind is unique and different from any other position at the table. There are certain things we would do in the big-blind that we would almost never do in any other position.

Even good players will nearly always lose money in the big-blind. Being forced to invest 1bb before even seeing our hole cards is a huge disadvantage, especially when you consider that we will spend much of our BB time playing out of position.

The name of the game in the BB is hence not to make money, but to lose the least amount possible.

If we imagine for a minute that we folded every single BB, we’d be losing at a rate of -100bb/100-hands. If we can make our overall BB winrate around -30bb/100-hands, then we are essentially doing a very good job of offsetting our losses!

Loosen Up!

Seeing as we have already invested some money into the pot (albeit involuntarily), we should typically do our best to defend this money. Remember thatwe get a better price on any cold-call since 1bb has already been invested.

The most common mistake that many players have been making for years is defending their big-blind too tightly. Even good players were not aware of this for a long time – the common advice was “always play tight from the blinds, we will be out-of-position postflop”.

Let’s have a look at some typical ranges and see how we can be a little tougher when defending our big-blind.

BB Ranges

BB vs BTN 2.5x

As we can see the recommended defending range from the big-blind against a BTN open is quite wide.

There are 3 colours here

Light Red – Value 3bet
Dark Red – Bluff 3bet
Dark Blue – Cold-Call

It is important to remember that the size that the open-raisers use will change our defending frequency quite considerably. So if someone opens for a min-raise we should defend many more hands, while if someone opens for 3bb we should defend considerably less hands.

BB vs CO 3x

It makes sense to consider defending ranges vs a CO 3bb open rather than a 2.5bb seeing as it’s potentially going to be more common. Assuming our opponent open-raises to 2.5bb we should widen this defending range.

BB vs MP 3x

Same kind of stuff here, just tighter. Notice that the bluffing range consists entirely of speculative hands (more on this later).

The general idea here is that playability is a little more important when out-of-position, whereas our pot-equity is not necessarily that much of a factor. We won’t get to realise our equity as much when OOP by seeing a showdown, so it’s better that we have a non-dominated high-playability hand in our 3betting range such as a suited-connector.

We will see that assuming we are in position then equity is more important while playability becomes a little less important. This will be reflected in the BB vs SB ranges.

BB vs UTG 3x

BB vs SB 2.5x

BB vs SB is a very important situation in BB defense. Why so? It’s essentially going to be the most profitable BB situation we face. In today’s games SB can potentially open very wide and we are guaranteed to always have position postflop if we decide to defend.

So there is no reason why we shouldn’t be defending very aggressively with a wide range. Against a 2.5x open we should be defending roughly 50% of the time. 15% of the time by 3betting and 35% of the time by cold-calling.

A common mistake is not realising how wide we can go with our 3bet bluffs. It’s not necessarily intuitive that something like K5o is a good bluffing hand BB vs SB because at first glance it seems overly weak.

Assuming we face a min-raise in this situation we should be defending over 70% of hands. In fact there is a pretty reasonable argument for defending any two cards in the BB vs a SB min-raise.

Notice also that the types of hands that we 3bet have changed. Instead of 3betting speculative hands like suited-connectors, our raw pot-equity is a little bit more valuable than our playability. The idea is we get to realise this equity more fully when we have position and can control the action a little better.

So the hands that are selected as part of our 3bet bluff range are all high-equity hands such as Ax, Kx, and Qx holdings.

The Unique BB Spot

We mentioned earlier that there was a unique feature that the big-blind possesses. Imagine for a minute that we are in the CO facing a UTG open. We know that our opponent folds 75% of the time to 3bets. This is actually enough folds for us to generate automatic profit with a 3bet. So can we 3bet any 2 cards?

Actually no, we can’t. We can potentially expand our 3betting range but we need to be aware of the fact that there are still 3 players to act behind us. So 3betting something like 32o for automatic profit would be a mistake. We’d start to lose a ton of money when one of the remaining opponents wakes up with something or decides to make a play!

In the BB however, we can literally 3bet anything because we are closing the action. So if BTN who has 80% fold-to-3bet decides to open-raise and SB folds, it’s correct for us to 3bet 32o regardless of how terrible the hand is.

Overcalling/Squeezing

There is another situation we can face when in the BB. A player open-raises and he gets a cold-caller. In the BB we now have the option to overcall or squeeze.

A rough idea of what our ranges should look like in this spot can be found below. But first, the meaning of the colours:

Light Red – Value Squeeze
Green – Squeeze OR Overcall
Dark Blue – Overcall
Red – Bluff Squeeze assuming both players aren’t calling stations

Firstly notice how wide the overcalling range can become. Almost any 2 suited cards can be fine for an overcall.

On the other hand, notice how there are no offsuit hands in our overcalling range whatsoever. This is because they do not play well multi-way.
Big Blind Ante

In a multi-way situation we’d prefer to make a straight or a flush as opposed to a weak 1 pair holding which offsuit hands typically make.

Also notice how we have hands in green that we should play a “mix” strategy with. In other words we can sometimes call and sometimes squeeze.

This is just a rough guide however. The exact squeezing range we should use depends on the position of the opener, the position of the caller, and the sizings used. We should also take into consideration whether we are out-of-position against just one opponent or both of them.

Iso-Raising or Checking

The final situation we can face is when we have the opportunity to either raise or to check-back when facing either limpers or a SB complete.

Remember that we shouldn’t feel any huge pressure to raise in this spot with marginal hands since we are already guaranteed to see a free flop by just checking back. In other words we should mainly just raise decent hands and check back the rest.

What qualifies as a “decent” hand will depend largely on whether we have position (in the case of facing a SB complete), or find ourselves out-of-position (facing a limp from any other position).

Assuming we are out-of-position we should typically raise a tight range of hands for pure value, such as the following...

Assuming that we are in position facing a SB complete, the number of hands we can profitably raise increases dramatically.

Putting it Together

If there is one thing we should take away from this article it’s that we shouldn’t be scared to defend our BB aggressively. The offshoot of this is that we are going to be finding ourselves postflop with weaker hands than we are used to. In order to deal with this we should also invest time in learning how to play postflop when OOP.

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First starting to rise to prominence in the poker world in early 2018, the big blind ante (BBA) has now become the norm for most poker tours, and many local tournaments, around the world.

If the BBA is somehow new to you, know that it simply means that when it is time for antes, instead of each player posting an individual ante, the player in the big blind posts an ante for the entire table.

For example, in a traditional ante structure, when the blinds are 400-800, it would have been typical for each player to also post an ante of 100. Before the cards are dealt, the dealer collects 100 from each player. In the BBA structure, the size of the ante is typically the same as the amount of the big blind, and is paid only by the big blind. In this case, the big blind would post 800 as the ante, and then another 800 as the big blind.

Soon after I submitted the final draft of my first book, FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies, to D&B Publishing, this trend towards the BBA was beginning to emerge and grow. Before we got to publication, I told them to wait a bit, and drafted a new, additional chapter, focusing on the BBA and how to adjust for it. I want to give you a summary of that chapter now.

The first thing to keep in mind, when you are the big blind, and post both the BBA and the big blind, is that there is nothing different you should do as compared to the traditional ante structure. The fact that the BBA came from your stack does not mean you should defend your blind more often, or with a wider range of hands.

Once money is in the pot, it does not matter where it came from. The reason it is correct to play a wider range of hands from the big blind than from early position is not because the big blind is your money. It is for other reasons, chief among them because you can call a raise for less than other players. If you post the 800 big blind, and somebody raises to 2,000, it costs other players 2,000 to call, but only costs you 1,200.

Another key factor is that frequently you are closing the action when you call a raise. If the player in first position raises to 2,000, somebody in middle position not only has to call 2,000, but must risk a reraise from another player. When action gets to you, you can call and see a flop with no such risk. Neither of these factors takes into account where the chips came from. So, the good news is, you really don’t need to adjust anything at all when playing in a BBA structure.

There is one area where you will want to make some rather large adjustments, however. This happens when you become very short-stacked. With blinds still at 400-800, in a traditional structure, if I were to find myself under-the-gun and only had 1,200 chips, I would still fold my worst hands. In this case, rather than go all-in now with a weak hand, I will fold, knowing I will never fold my next hand, no matter how bad.

In the BBA structure, this would be a huge mistake. If I fold now, next hand I will have to post 400 as the (short) ante, and 800 as the big blind, and I will be all-in at that point. In some rooms, the ante comes first, so I would post 800 as the BBA, and be all-in for 400 in the big blind. In either case, if I win the pot, other players will only lose the amount of chips that are posted for my blind. They won’t have to match the ante I also posted. Even if I were in better shape, and starting the hand with 3,000 chips, once I post 800 as an ante, and another 800 as the big blind, I am probably never going to fold my hand. But again, this means when I win, I only win 2,200 from the losing players, and don’t get matching chips for the 800 I paid as an ante.

Because of this, in the BBA structure, if you are severely short-stacked, you should always go all-in at some point before being the big blind. And for any given number of blinds, the minimum hand with which it is correct to go all-in is much weaker in the BBA structure than in a traditional ante structure. If you are under-the-gun with seven big blinds in a traditional ante structure, you should still fold some hands. Yet it will probably be correct to go all-in with any hand in this situation playing the BBA structure.

Without a doubt, the BBA is here to stay, and will likely become the only structure used for any tournament that has antes. So, learn to enjoy its benefits, and ignore anything about it you don’t like. And learn some new strategies for which hands to shove when short-stacked, and when you should still wait for better. But for the most part, there is no need to adjust your game for this format. ♠

Greg Raymer is the 2004 World Series of Poker main event champion, winner of numerous major titles, and has more than $7 million in earnings. He recently authored FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies, available from D&B Publishing, Amazon, and other retailers. He is sponsored by Blue Shark Optics, YouStake, and ShareMyPair. To contact Greg please tweet @FossilMan or visit his website.

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