Poker is a game that does not work without betting, and betting doesn’t really work without someone being forced to put chips into the pot before they look at their cards.
If you think about it, if there were no forced bets, players would be able to wait infinitely for premium hands and only play when they have them.
What’s even more, other players would have very little incentive to play back at them, as they would know they have a great hand, and there would be nothing in the pot for them to win.
Blinds and antes exist for this particular reason, and while most poker players understand how blinds work, the effect of ante in poker is often neglected.
In this article, we are going to look at what an ante is in poker, how it works, and how your poker strategy should adapt when antes are in play versus when they are not.
What Is an Ante in Poker?
On the most basic level, an ante bet is a forced bet that every player at the table must post before any cards are dealt.
In games like Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, which are the most popular forms of poker these days, ante bets are not always enforced.
However, in many mixed game variations like Stud or Razz, ante bets are used every single hand whether you are playing a cash game or a tournament.
In games where an ante is enforced, this forced bet is usually very small, ranging between 10% and 20% of the big blind.
For instance, if you are playing a poker tournament at the 500/1000 level, you may be asked to pay an ante of 100 or 150 chips every single hand, regardless of your position.
Note that ante bets are not optional, and in poker tournaments, you will be charged an ante every hand, even if you are not at the table.
To simplify things, tournament directors have introduced the concept of big blind ante, which makes things a lot easier for everyone involved and which we are going to explain a bit further in this text.
Why Do Ante Bets Exist?
Like any forced bet in poker, an ante bet is used to widen poker ranges, drive the action, and give players a reason to put more chips into the pot.
The dealer collects all ante bets before the action starts and puts them into the middle, making the pot bigger and enticing players to try and steal the chips already in there.
For instance, playing in a $5/10 cash game without antes, the starting pot would be $15. With a $1 ante per player, at an 8-handed table, the pot would grow to $23.
While this may seem insignificant to amateurs, antes make all the difference and completely change the theoretical approach you should have to the game.
For starters, you are paying about one full blind extra for every orbit at the table, which means it costs more to sit in the game.
This means waiting for pocket Aces will not work, as the price of poker is now higher, and you need to fight back to make sure you get some of those chips you have given away back.
In the short run, it will seem like antes don’t matter, as a single big pot may be worth hundreds of antes. However, in the long run, playing too tight in an ante game will definitely hurt your bottom line.
Ante bets are introduced into poker games to drive the action, and they most certainly do that with great success, as ante games tend to play significantly bigger than non-ante games.
Big Blind Ante Explained
If you are an online tournament poker player, you are probably used to seeing every player at the table pay their own ante in every hand.
This used to be the case in live tournaments as well, but collecting chips from every player would often be tiresome and slow for the dealers and would end up making the game much slower overall.
The concept of the big blind ante was introduced to resolve this problem, as only a single player at the table now needs to pay an ante bet.
In most cases, the player who is in the big blind also covers the antes for the entire table, with players alternating in who pays the ante.
This way, everyone ends up paying the same amount per orbit, but the game can flow a lot faster in a live poker setting.
The big blind ante rule is now applied in all major poker tournaments worldwide, so if you go to play your first live event, don’t be surprised when the dealer asks you to pay 2x the big blind when it’s your turn.
How Should Antes Affect Your Strategy?
If you want to adjust your strategy in one simple way when there is an ante in play, you should do so by playing looser.
What I mean by this is you should open more pots for a raise and try to steal the dead money more often, as you have the incentive to do so.
The addition of the ante makes every pot significantly bigger, and making the same small raise will still have the same effect against most players.
Since so many players don’t think about the size of the pot and the effects of the ante, you will get away with stealing many pots uncontested, significantly adding to your win rate.
Even when playing against thinking players who do realize the impact of the ante, you should still be opening wider, as there is still a good chance they don’t have hands they can continue with.
As usual, you will still want to play the tightest in the UTG position and the loosest on the button, but the amount of hands you play from each position should increase.
For instance, GTO poker recommends opening just 10% of all hands UTG+1 in an 8-handed game without an ante but recommends opening nearly 20% from the same position with an ante.
The strategic implication here is clear. The more money is in the pot before the cards are dealt, the more likely you should be to open the pot and go after that money.
Do Antes Make Sense in Cash Games?
If you have never played a cash game with antes, you have probably not experienced everything cash game poker can be.
Just like they do in tournaments, antes entice action in cash games as well and make everyone play looser and more aggressively all the time.
Depending on their size, antes can also prompt some limping in cash games, creating a whole new strategy aspect that you perhaps haven’t considered before.
If you play in a private cash game with your friends, I highly recommend thinking about introducing antes into it and changing the buyin and blind structure to accommodate this, as it will probably make your games a lot more fun and action-packed.
Considerations When Stealing the Antes
The equilibrium ranges suggest opening significantly wider when antes are in play, but playing exploitatively in these spots works quite well also. Namely, being aware of who you are playing against can be very useful when thinking about stealing the blinds and antes before the flop.
If you are opening from an early position and several of the players behind you are very aggressive, you will still want to open a tighter range than theory might suggest.
Since you won’t be able to continue against 3-bets with the hands you are adding to your opening range, you may not want to add all of them if it is very likely one of the players behind you will 3-bet.
On the other hand, you will print money in such situations by opening tighter and getting all the extra money from their light 3-bets into the pot at the expense of not being able to steal as many antes.
The player in the big blind also plays a big role in this decision. If that player is very sticky, you should again look to play a bit tighter. If they are very tight and likely to fold anything but great hands, you should open even wider from late positions, possibly any two cards.
Finally, when looking to steal the antes and raise in a game with antes in general, you should usually go slightly bigger than you would in a non-ante game so as to give your opponents a worse price and discourage calls.
Don’t Ignore the Ante Bet in Your Games!
Ante bets are often ignored altogether by recreational players and amateurs who find them to be a nuisance and nothing more.
The truth, of course, is far from that, as the ante bet is a critical part of the game and one that changes the strategic approach you should have significantly.
The next time you are playing in a game with antes, which will likely be a poker tournament, make sure to be aware of the antes and try to steal as many of them as possible without playing like a maniac.
Your bottom line will significantly improve if you realize the value and importance of ante bets and play very aggressively when they kick in and start bloating every single pot.
