"Antes punish tight players" - LemOn36

We chat to our cash game coach about the new ante games at PokerStars, the mistakes people make in them and whether they are a 'rake trap'

How have antes changed Zoom?

LemOn36: Antes punish tight players, and the NL2 ones were absolutely massive, and already got switched off.

Now what we have at NL10-NL25 is an ante that's reasonably small, shouldn't make the game that much shallower, but still forces people to play looser if they want to crush the games.

Zoom is notoriously a tight game, has this loosened Zoom up?

LemOn36: Yes - In theory, but right now when you look at players per flop the statistic hasn't changed much.

How should your strategy change when antes are in the pot?

LemOn36: Number one change is the Big Blind - you have to defend a lot wider, even virtually 100% suited hands against small raise sizes because of the great odds you are getting.

In turn if people aren't aware of this (as many don't seem to be now) you can steal much wider than usual and make good profit. 3-bet pots have also changed - you should 3-bet bigger out of position, and call very wide against people that don't because of more dead money and better odds for the caller.

Only exception is what I call the "Pokersnowie half pot special 3-bet" where you 3-bet in position with a wide range to 1/2 pot sizing, put opponents behind you in an awkward spot, give yourself great odds, but can still comfortably bet the flop, turn and river all-in without over betting postflop because of the extra ante dead money and shallower Stack-to-Pot ratios.

"You have to play the Big Blind more"

How does it change the post flop game?

LemOn36: Stacks are shallower as default. This means that e.g. in 3-bet pots out of position the line of big bet on flop and then shoving all in on good turns should be common place .

Because it's Zoom ante however, you will often play deep, and deep poker strategy changes considerably - the value of speculative hands and disguised strong hands goes up, the value of one pair hands goes down and you have to proceed more cautiously with them, try to incorporate overbets into your game etc.

Also the strategy doesn't change that much, but you play a lot more pots in the Big Blind, out of position, with a capped weak range and without initiative so the importance of playing those situations goes up, and the edge you gain by being better at them than your opponents increases.

What are the biggest mistakes you see in ante games?

LemOn36: Over folding the Big Blind and Button against small sizes is number one. Also people make mistakes when playing deep - overvaluing hands for one, but that is to be expected.

"Beginners should not worry about antes"

A lot of people think this makes the game unprofitable and or a rake trap, what do you think?

LemOn36: PokerStars is a business, they are looking for more ways to make revenue and nobody can really blame them. In this case, rake will go up as you will see more flops.

For me personally, as long as people will not take money off the tables and will be willing to play deep the rake will not be that big of a factor.

As caps are in place, the relative rake to stack sizes goes down as you get deeper, and what you in effect have when people play deep is simply a higher stake with rake increased mostly by seeing more flops because of the good odds.

Whether it’s antes, bomb pots or formats like Tempest, it seems like antes/extra money in the pot is going to be part of cash games from now on, do you think antes will be the norm online?

LemOn36: At first I was convinced they will be. But after talking to my students I am not surprised at all that NL2 and 5 got rolled back to no ante games.

When you are starting out you have so many things to worry about - hand rankings, how much to bet when, hand charts etc.

Adding ante to these entry level stakes is just confusing to beginners, and a few just stopped playing Zoom because of it.

I would like Ante to be introduced at higher stakes, but with some sort of mechanism that rewards people for not taking money off the table instantly when they get deeper, and bringing back 200BB buy in possibility would be the dream - but hey, we can't have everything I suppose.

Do you like antes in cash games? Let us know in the comments: