Large Ante Poker is Fun – Thinking Poker

I played the SCOOP Large Ante $150 and $1500 events yesterday, not even realizing what they were until the tournament started. What a lot of fun! I think formats like this are awesome because they separate the people who understand poker from those who have a robotic, if successful, strategy. No one really knows what the proper strategy looks like and is trying to figure it out as they go along.

For those who don’t know, in this structure, the blinds always stay the same: $5 and $5. However, the antes get bigger every round. This means that as early as Level 2, you are getting better than 20:1 odds to limp into any unraised pot. By late in the tournament, it can be well over 1000:1. Sure, a lot of pots get raised (though again, people have to invent “standard” bet sizes from scratch), but it’s never correct to fold any two cards in an unraised pot. You could tell immediately who was trying to think about the format, because they were the ones at least limping into every pot, and sometimes limp-re-raising. Personally, I was playing something like 60/15.

I definitely managed to pick up a few pots with junk post-flop. The other thing that not a lot of people seemed to realize was that, even in spots where 6 people saw the flop, it was unlikely anyone had much since many of those people were playing any two cards. I was showing a profit betting like half pot with gut shots into 5 players.

Here’s one where I limp 62o UTG and win it post-flop with a gutshot:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 1575 Tournament, 5/5 Blinds 60 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP3 (t5504)
CO (t5775)
Button (t7416)
SB (t8460)
BB (t6085)
UTG (t7791)
Hero (UTG+1) (t8953)
MP1 (t2833)
MP2 (t6305)

Hero’s M: 16.28

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with 2, 6
UTG calls t5, Hero calls t5, 2 folds, MP3 calls t5, 1 fold, Button calls t5, 1 fold, BB checks

Flop: (t570) 5, 3, 3 (5 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, MP3 bets t311, 3 folds, Hero calls t311

Turn: (t1192) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 checks

River: (t1192) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t777, 1 fold

Total pot: t1192

Results:
Hero didn’t show 2, 6 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t1192

And here’s another fun one:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 1575 Tournament, 5/5 Blinds 175 Ante (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG+1 (t42336)
MP1 (t18025)
MP2 (t23708)
CO (t16533)
Button (t52258)
SB (t6187)
BB (t40219)
Hero (UTG) (t33088)

Hero’s M: 23.47

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q, J
Hero calls t5, UTG+1 calls t5, 1 fold, MP2 calls t5, CO calls t5, 1 fold, SB checks, BB bets t1050, Hero calls t1045, 4 folds