Do we need ANTES in DTD's £15 to £50 Evening Comps (30 min clocks or less)?

[Boba Fett]

Im completely out of touch with low buyin nightly comps, would I be right in saying that the type of player that mostly uses the structure to turn the tournament into a 10bb average-type tournament is the older generation of player?

If so, then can this not be attributed to extensive experience in no-ante tournaments?  Without being ridiculous about it i think forcing players to lose chips every hand and not just twice per orbit causes them to play more pot, steal more pots, fight for more pots, play more postflop and will improve their overall game in the longrun and if this is happening on a wider scale in smaller buyins throughout the UK then the players advancing to bigger buyins will be better equipped in those tournaments when they do play hands against better players.

[nirvana]

At Luton I'm pretty sure that they've introduced new min bet rules which could, even should, enable the antes to go.

Struggling to figure it out exactly but something like

Suited broadways, AK - you can do a min (gay) raise to steal the antes that are still in place at the moment

Pairs 22 - 99  - min open rule is 3x

TT-JJ  - min open is 9x

QQ, KK, AA, - min open 4x

[Simon Galloway]

You forgot the fishy ace-x open, min open is to the 2nd knuckle from the front stack.

[david3103]

Remember that feeling when you scooped your first ever massive live pot and the dealer heaves a mound of lovely chips at you? I do. It was great.

Antes pretty much ensure lots of chips on the table which means more FUN. Yeehaa.

If this is an issue, just put more lower value chips instead of a couple of 1ks.

Also race chips off later in the comp.

Please don't do this. Watching some ham-fisted player ask me for $500 worth of ante chips (which I happily give in the off-chance it helps him speed up putting an ante in) and then count out a flop call of $450 in said ante chips (one at a time), before asking me next hand for some more change as he has "run out" is quite possibly one of the most tilting things to happen at a table.

make it a rule that all bets be made with the minimum number of chips. if you call 200 with 1x100 & 4x25 chips then your hand is dead. simples

And how does this help a newbie or rec, settle in?

New blood is required, not more off putting rules.

I voted remove the antes, purely based on the fact I'm colour blind, and it's 1 less colour for me to worry about.  Obviously this affects hardly anyone else.

Asking for change for antes just bugs me TBH.

Yeah, I was 100% serious about this...

[Junior Senior]

Keep them in super 50s and any flagship weekend events but anything with lower buy in and midweek nightly 15,20 and 50 pound comps just remove them as it will speed up the game and make it more rec friendly.

[Cf]

I still think that starting comps with 999,999 chips and being able to be knocked out at 1-2am without even being on the final puts newbies off.

People have lives/work (except maybe poker players. ) poker can get boring after that amount of time, and getting knocked out without winning after that amount of time sucks.

But maybe that's just me...

[smurf]

Antes don't matter either way to me, it is what it is.

There are a number of things that put new players off but one thing that definitely puts them off is the finish times, I would say a huge percentage of recreational players all have jobs and can't be in a casino till after midnight.

Here's an idea

A timed tournament
Cheap buy in aimed at lower stakes recreational players and new players
7pm till 11 pm
Antes from the start
Maximum amount of time to play your hand so there are no time wasters
Payout based on chip stacks after four hours

Just throwing it out there

It gives an end time, a payout for lasting the distance, antes from the start will force play and I think would attract newer players as they can see there are four hours of play and they will get a return should they last that long.

[George2Loose]

Lets not mess with comps. They're actually quite good ATM. Antes in comps wouldn't be the top of my list when it comes to improving one day events

[SuuPRlim]

The only reason for antes is to allow someone to raise/fold.

Pretty sure the reason they are present is to keep forcing people into all-ins/bigger pots at a steady rate, keeping players busting out and the average stack constant and high enough to make it playable for those left in.

Rob pointed out in this super fast evening comps the blinds go up steeply and quickly, so people forced all-in pretty quickly anyways, so maybe ante's won't make too much of a difference, if peoples experience playing these comps is improved by removing them, and the game speed ups drastically, then you should remove them imo.

I recall when I first started playing in these evening comps structure was like;

10k stack

50-100
100-200
200-400
400-800

No antes in sight, in fact pretty sure I'd been playing live poker for about 2 years before I posted an ante lol, those comps were still a load of fun and the same guys used to play every night. Now I think the casino comps all have ante's and I still see the same people there all the time as I did years ago so doesn't really seem like it makes much difference either way.

[doubleup]

The only reason for antes is to allow someone to raise/fold.

Pretty sure the reason they are present is to keep forcing people into all-ins/bigger pots at a steady rate, keeping players busting out and the average stack constant and high enough to make it playable for those left in.

Don't agree at all

The point of any blinds/antes is to create action.  The difference between just blinds and blinds and antes is that the minimum bet is smaller when you use antes.

At the extreme, imagine blinds of 100/200 and antes of 100 and compare it to blinds of 400/800.  There is the same 1200 chips in the pot before any action.  But to have any chance of winning the money in the latter case, you have to risk far more.  So for any given M, it is more likely than a shovefest occurs without antes.

[titaniumbean]

The only reason for antes is to allow someone to raise/fold.

Pretty sure the reason they are present is to keep forcing people into all-ins/bigger pots at a steady rate, keeping players busting out and the average stack constant and high enough to make it playable for those left in.

Rob pointed out in this super fast evening comps the blinds go up steeply and quickly, so people forced all-in pretty quickly anyways, so maybe ante's won't make too much of a difference, if peoples experience playing these comps is improved by removing them, and the game speed ups drastically, then you should remove them imo.

I recall when I first started playing in these evening comps structure was like;

10k stack

50-100
100-200
200-400
400-800

No antes in sight, in fact pretty sure I'd been playing live poker for about 2 years before I posted an ante lol, those comps were still a load of fun and the same guys used to play every night. Now I think the casino comps all have ante's and I still see the same people there all the time as I did years ago so doesn't really seem like it makes much difference either way.

making it past level 3 is pretty hard tho.

[ThudNBlunder]

Having played a few of the lower buy in events at DTD with a relatively fast clock I have to say that I'd be in favor of removing antes OR introducing a form of 'courtesy clock' whereby players have a set amount of time to make a decision. One of the problems I've seen (particularly recently) is that players are impressed by DTD and take it 'seriously'. Their only exposure to 'serious' poker is on TV- where drama is created by long tanks and dramatic calls/ folds. For some reason they fail to notice the difference between a two hour clock and a 20 minute one. One hand on my table last Friday at 4k/8k took 7 minutes in a 20 minute structure and terminated in a 'dramatic' two minute tank/ fold......
I've recently been bemoaning that DTD wasn't what it used to be because I used to go for the great structures and quality comps. I've realised that it's not the standard of tournaments but the standard of player that needs polishing up! Maybe a bit of player education might go a long way to speeding things up; possibly penalties introduced for consistently slow play?
I run a room and I've started to warn players for slow play when the clock is 20 minutes or less, with penalties of anything from missing 3 hands to missing a round. I haven't had to impose a penalty yet and it seems to have helped, albeit slightly.
In conclusion- ANYTHING to speed up play!

[rfgqqabc]

The only reason for antes is to allow someone to raise/fold.

Pretty sure the reason they are present is to keep forcing people into all-ins/bigger pots at a steady rate, keeping players busting out and the average stack constant and high enough to make it playable for those left in.

Don't agree at all

The point of any blinds/antes is to create action.  The difference between just blinds and blinds and antes is that the minimum bet is smaller when you use antes.

At the extreme, imagine blinds of 100/200 and antes of 100 and compare it to blinds of 400/800.  There is the same 1200 chips in the pot before any action.  But to have any chance of winning the money in the latter case, you have to risk far more.  So for any given M, it is more likely than a shovefest occurs without antes.

I have never seen an ante = 1 sb. They tend to be .25/.2 which makes your argument moot. Dont just randomly compare blind levels also. I think I'd prefer antes in 1 day comps but have no info to back it up and would rarely play one.

[titaniumbean]

less in the pot = more incentive to shove

say wat

[teamonkey]

i do like the idea of having a set time to carry out an action, esp in the £50 and lower buy in games with 30 minute clocks or below

As stated previously, you do get some hollywood folders in these games that take an age every decision

I have been known to call a clock on someone when i'm not even in a hand, it's considered bad etiquette yes, but so is taking 2 minutes thinking about weather or not to call a preflop min raise *



*i've never called a clock in that situation, but have seen people agonise over what to do with their hand in that situation when sat with 100BB